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THE COMPASS-CLOCK DIAL 

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THE CLOCK DIAL 
Drawn by Natalie Rice Clark from Bacon's Alphabet of Nature. 



BACON'S 

Dial in Shakespeare 

A COMPASS-CLOCK CIPHER 

By 
NATALIE RICE CLARK 




CINCINNATI 

STEWART KIDD COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1922, by 
NATALIE RICE CLARK 



-v^tli 



All Rights Reserved 






Printed in the United Statea of America 

The Caxton Press 

"Everybody for Books. " This is one of the Interlaken Library. 



JAN22?3 

C1A692974 



To My Husband and My Son 

FRANK LOWRY CLARK 
RANSOM BUTLER CLARK 



FOREWORD 

This book tries to show that a cipher designed 
by Francis Bacon, and based on the union of a 
clock and compass in Dial form, exists in the First 
Folio of Shakespeare, printed in 1623. 

The Dial cipher is used as a literary framework 
for the plays, and is closely associated with the 
finest passages and allusions. It does not dis- 
place Baconian evidence already brought for- 
ward by others, and it does strengthen the force 
of many visible acrostics in the text, by showing 
their placements as they tally on the Dial chart. 

So far as I can find out, the Dial cipher has not 
been observed in any way before this, and there- 
fore I am not able to give credit to some pos- 
sible and unknown decipherer, who may long ago 
have seen it dimly. 

But to a few people here at Miami University, 
who have helped me, I may give my hearty thanks: 
to President and Mrs. Raymond Mollyneaux 
Hughes, whose point of view is always sympa- 
thetic and forward-looking; to Professor J. Belden 
Dennison for discriminating criticism during the 
progress of the cipher-tracking and for reading the 
manuscript; and to my husband, Professor Frank 
Lowry Clark, without whose steady cooperation 
and insistent scholarly method this book could 
not have been at all. I am grateful also to Miss 

7 



FOREWORD 



Helen J. R. Scott for aid at times in the long task 
of the cipher count, and to Miss Grace Adams 
for valuable suggestions during the final re- 
vision of the manuscript. 

For the excellent work on the mechanical 
drawings of the charts, I am indebted to Mr. 
Thomas W. Peirano of Cincinnati. 

It is my hope that others may join me in the 
further development of the cipher message, for 
it is a pleasant thing to study, a most sane and 
human and worthy cipher, both comrade and 
critic at once. 

N. R. C. 



CONTENTS 

Some Reasons for a Cipher, and the 

Cipher 13 

The Gates and Keys 28 

Cipher Clues in Bacon's Work 50 

Telling the Time 62 

The Points of the Compass 75 

Dial Hours in the Text 94 

The Cipher in Macbeth 129 

Bacon Blazons or Signatures 154 

Guide to the Maze Pictures 181 

The Hour Count in Macbeth 190 



CHARTS 

THE COMPASS-CLOCK DIAL. Frontispiece 

THE CLOCK DIAL. Frontispiece 

MAZE PICTURES 

These "Pictures" were traced on the Dial Chart by Natalie Rice Clark, 

and are re-tracings of the letter-designs set in the text of the Folio 

by Francis Bacon. 

THE WEST AND NORTH GATES. 182 

THE SOUTH GATES. 182 

THE BROKEN BOWSTRING IN MUCH ADO. 182 

THE PLAIN FISH IN TEMPEST. 183 

THE JEWEL IN TEMPEST. 183 

THE DIPPER IN TEMPEST. 183 

THE BLAZON IN TAMING. 185 

THE JEWEL IN / HENRY IV. 185 

THE DIPPER IN / HENRY IV. 185 

THE JEWEL SEEN IN TIMON. 186 

THE JEWEL MISSING IN TIMON. 186 

THE DIPPER IN EPILOGUE OF TEMPEST. 186 

BEN JONSON'S CONSTELLATION. 188 

THE TYRING ROOM. 188 
THE JEWEL FROM SHAKESPEARE'S EPITAPH.188 



FIG. 


I. 


FIG. 


2. 


FIG. 


3- 


FIG. 


4- 


FIG. 


5- 


FIG. 


6. 


FIG. 


7- 


FIG. 


8. 


FIG. 


9- 


FIG. 


10. 


FIG. 


II. 


FIG. 


12. 


FIG. 


13- 


FIG. 


14. 


FIG. 


15- 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 



CHAPTER I 

SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER, AND 
THE CIPHER 

I 

"If Lord Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare, 
why did he not say so?" This is a question that 
Francis Bacon himself would have respected. He 
would have known that he must reckon with it, 
in all astute minds. He was observing and far- 
sighted. The law, with which his name is now 
associated, was not his choice as a profession, 
but he accepted it as a way toward political 
preferment and financial independence, after his 
own income became suddenly small. 

Bacon left Cambridge University early because 
he thought its routine and requirements were 
deadening to all originality. His opinions ex- 
pressed on this subject are still quoted by educa- 
tors. He betook himself to France, in the inter- 
ests of his own talents, and there he studied, 
among other things, the art of making ciphers. 
It was an asset in that day to have a difficult 
cipher of one's own. 

Later, when Bacon was in Parliament, it was 
said of him that his power to sway the moods of 
others was such that "the fear of every man that 
heard him was lest he should make an end." He 
incurred the disfavor of Queen Elizabeth as a 

13 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

result of his avowed democratic sympathies, and 
learned by experience the need for keeping his 
real feelings to himself and "in silence", as a 
letter written by him at the time has served to 
explain. He dared not risk the further displeasure 
of the Crown, and plays especially, at that period, 
were apt to be misunderstood. 

Many an author in those days took not only 
a pen-name, but what we might call a "pen-man". 
This convenient person registered the plays in 
his own name, and was liable thus for prosecution 
if he incensed the reigning power by causing the 
people to think too seriously. Plays were then 
registered to protect the Crown, rather than to 
assist the writer himself. 

Thus when young William Shaxberd, as the 
name was sometimes spelled, came up to London 
to make his fortune, he might have found the 
rising politician, Francis Bacon, decidedly glad 
to make use of his initials, and even of his name 
and personality. 

Francis Bacon's childhood had been in charge of 
a finely educated, keenly intelligent woman, with 
an ardent public spirit. Yet Lady Bacon was too 
active a Puritan not to dread the influence of the 
drama. Once when Francis was thought to be 
taking part in the Christmas revels at Gray's Inn, 
where the youthful lawyers congregated, she wrote 
to her son Anthony, "I pray they do not mum, 
nor mask, nor sinfully revel." This was an added 
reason for keeping the honored family name away 



SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER 

from the play-houses, at least until one had proved 
one's mission. 

But who that writes a play does not wish to 
see it acted? Who that could so move the hearts 
of men in a court-room, would not desire to see 
his written words affect the larger audience of the 
stage? 

Here a cipher offered its aid. Bacon could write 
as his fancy led him, could use real personages, 
characters in actual history, jests of the moment, 
and be open to no censure but that of his own 
swift brain, if only he could weave within the 
plays some cipher that would secure his author- 
ship for the time to come. 

His fear was not that a cipher might never be 
discovered, but that it might be discovered too 
soon, and thus wreck his career. De-ciphering 
was a recognized study. As Bacon advanced 
in his calling he may have believed that every 
scrap of his writings would be searched, after his 
death, for the hint of a political secret or a 
hidden history. What he perhaps did not foresee 
was that he would again be in political disfavor, 
and that decipherers would not concern them- 
selves with the manuscripts of a discarded mem- 
ber of King James's court. But when this time 
came, the fact overtook Lord Bacon, but did not 
daunt him. 

The first complete collection of the plays known 
as those of "W. S."or of "William Shakespeare", 
was published in 1623, seven years after Shake- 

15 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPE_ARE 

speare's death. This, the First Folio edition of 
Shakespeare, marked a date when Bacon had been 
already two years in retirement, living outside 
London, and busying himself with writing. 

Bacon's private secretary. Dr. Rawley, states 
that one of the first pieces of work done by 
Bacon after his retirement, and therefore not long 
before the printing of the First Folio, was the 
short, disconnected Fragment called the Abece- 
darium Naturae^ or Alphabet of Nature. This has 
been acknowledged to be his work by his great 
biographers, Montagu and Spedding, but it 
has puzzled them as well as other readers because 
of its curious character. It is classed as a piece of 
unfinished metaphysical writing. In reality, it 
gives the clearest clue to Bacon's cipher, and 
was, as I believe, planned for that purpose, though 
it does not stand alone in its ability to act as a 
cipher guide. 

Lord Bacon died in 1626. After his death. Dr. 
Rawley brought out a portion of his remaining 
manuscript in book form. After Rawley's death, 
an old friend of the Rawleys', Archbishop Teni- 
son, came into possession of much of the manu- 
script yet unpublished and still in its original 
shape. In his collection called Baconiana, pub- 
lished in 1679, Tenison includes the Abecedarium 
Naturae. 

Bacon set a high value upon every scrap of 
his own writing. In his will he left definite in- 
structions for the preservation of all of it, and for 

16 



SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER 

the publishing of everything that he had written. 
He also directed that complete copies of all his 
works be given to several of the most permanent 
and notable libraries in England. Thus he sought 
to safeguard the cipher itself and the secret of the 
cipher, as well as his openly acknowledged works. 

II 

Another question asked with zeal is this; 
"Why not let Shakespeare have his plays in 
peace r 

One answer in many is that William Shake- 
speare went up to London after a way of life that 
was certainly not that of a thinker and a student; 
and that he is given only three years in London 
before he is presumed to have begun his dramatic 
work. He had a position as hostler at the first. 
Three years, under any circumstances, is a rather 
short time in which to acquire the various high 
forms of intelligence, the multitude of unfamiliar 
facts, known to us, but novel in that day; the ap- 
parently instinctive knowledge of court customs 
and refinements of speech and manner; the French 
as well as the English point of view; the sym- 
pathy with country folk from the viewpoint of 
an enthusiastic onlooker, and his types of fine, 
spirited, highly- trained women; — a short time 
for the young man of too convivial habits and 
a poacher's tastes to transform himself into the 
progressive thinker, the busy dramatist, the 
trusted friend for all the ages of mankind. 

2 i^ 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

No one can say that Shakespeare could not 
possibly have done this. But the chances appear 
strongly against his having done it. One grants 
much to a flash of genius. However, as between 
two men with flashes of genius, the man whose 
genius comes from a reasonable source, and who 
has lived up to his own perception of it most 
frankly and logically throughout a strenuous life, 
commands the larger confidence. From such a 
man we should prefer to take our philosophy, 
our English literary standard, our warm human 
ideals. 

Now it might be called a miracle if Shakespeare 
wrote the plays. It takes only a few grains of 
Elizabethan mystery and romance added to Ba- 
con's career in order to feel assured that not only 
could he have done it all, but that he could never 
have been kept from doing it. 

The Shakespeare plays were written over a 
period from 1590 to 161 2, according to a table 
given by Neilson and Thorndike. {Facts about 
Shakespeare^ page 76) This is an interesting es- 
timate. It does not disturb, so far as Bacon is 
concerned, and it leaves that nice margin of three 
years, after Shakespeare's arrival in London, for 
him to have used in acquiring the necessary 
merit for his new and totally amazing life-work. 
Yet — it is given to all human minds to doubt the 
incredible. 

Stress is rightly laid on Ben Jonson's friendship 
with "Shakespeare". But in the long dedicatory 



SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER 

poem of Ben Jonson's, set at the front of the First 
Folio, there is revealed an entire acquaintance 
with the Dial cipher of Bacon. And one other 
of the dedicatory verses in the Folio, a poem of 
only eight lines beginning "We wondred (Shake- 
speare) that thou wentst so soon", and signed by 
an unknown "I.M", tallies on the Bacon Dial- 
chart in such a way as to prove that the cipher was 
known to the writer as Bacon's own. The con- 
clusion is that to several, at least, of Lord Bacon's 
friends, the use he made of a "pen-man" was a 
secret they shared and kept and appreciated, as a 
necessity of his times. 

How different those times were from ours, and 
how much more difficult it would have been for 
Bacon to have spent much time at the play- 
house, or for Shakespeare to have spent much 
time at the court, may be realized by considering 
the social standing of an actor in those days. He 
was not then, as he may be in the twentieth cen- 
tury, a "lion" of any sort whatever. To be an 
actor, it was required that a man take out a li- 
cense as a servant, whose master vouched for 
him. The pay was meager, the actor of that day 
stood either on the verge of ruin or the threshold 
of failure, while if he ever saw the inside of a 
palace hall it was to pass through on the way to 
the servants' quarters, as do the players in Hamlet^ 
or to act a part for a few brief instants on its 
stage. 

Literally, such an actor, even had Shakespeare 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

been actor and plajrwright both, could only have 
seen the members of the court at a time when he 
did in actual fact "strut and fret his hour" on 
the stage. Any thought of Shakespeare as ab- 
ruptly stepping into the glare and the fashion 
of the court life is a modern one, not upheld by 
the Elizabethan facts. Therefore it does not ap- 
pear wholly irrational to doubt his acquire- 
ment of the thousand things he never could have 
learned in Stratford, England. 

Ill 

There is a third question raised, and it is one of 
distinction. "Can a great creative artist limit 
himself by a haggling cipher?" Every one who 
writes, whether it is more or less, feels those 
sudden moments when thought and feeling seem 
to work from without oneself, and to compel the 
unexpected presence of unsought words upon the 
paper. How in such a mood could one pause to 
insert a word that ought to occur in the ninety- 
ninth line of the forty-third page of the something- 
cipher? 

The reply to this is that Francis Bacon used his 
Dial cipher exactly as one might use any frame- 
work or skeleton of a play. He built his play 
about it. It was that by which he tried to give bal- 
ance, harmony, and the sense of living reality. 

A poet sometimes takes an intense pleasure 
in fitting words to a new rhythm, and an artist 
invents new obligations for himself in the realm 

20 



SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER 

of color and line. Bacon, essentially an observer, 
used his cipher like a note-book or a sketch-book. 
It served to stimulate both his memory and his 
imagination. He planned his plays to accord 
with certain harmonizing groups on his Dial- 
chart. He had a well-developed theory as to the 
needs of a mind that visualizes, and he is on record 
as believing that if one wished to remember such 
a word as "philosophy", it would be most easily 
done by visualizing the act of reading and men- 
tally picturing Aristotle as he read. 

Bacon's cipher is in the form of a visual guide 
and is easily memorized. He might have enjoyed 
using it even if he had been in the forest of Arden, 
with no chart in the forest. But there was a real 
"Dial" in the forest. And it is probable that he did 
in fact work with a real Dial board, on which he 
moved "pieces" or pegs. 

It is to be noted that the letter groups on the 
Dial-chart vary so that they may suggest to any- 
one using it a constantly changing progression of 
short words, as the circles are followed around 
the Dial. This may account in part for the ex- 
traordinary vocabulary of fifteen thousand words 
found in Shakespeare, many of them used but 
once in the plays. It may be proved that many 
words occur in the text at places tallying with the 
same word on the Dial-chart. This is true of 
unusual words and of many jests and puns. 
The famous "Duc-dame" in As You Like //, the 
"Ban-Ban-Cacalyban" in Tempest^ and the name 

11 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Yorick in Hamlet are examples of this Dial frame- 
work. 

Spellings within a single Hour-group are here 
called "in" the group; those reaching to another 
group for a letter are "at" the group. Words 
spelled in one or two lines are here considered ex- 
cellent tallies between Dial and text, provided that 
the word itself is significant, or so used in many- 
instances. The Dial Hours vary sufficiently in 
their lettering to give accuracy of tally. Gamma 
is an easy Hour in which to spell words; Delta 
with its many consonants is a difficult one. 

The best test of the Dial cipher is to try it for 
oneself. It was designed by Bacon, and is built 
here upon his own plan. The great fact is that, 
as Prospero said in Tempest ^ "It works. '^ 

IV 

"What is this cipher?" 

The Dial cipher is formed by fitting a compass 
face over a clock face. 

Clues leading to it are found in Francis Bacon's 
Alphabet of Nature^ in the History of the Winds^ 
and in other scientific notes of his. The completed 
Dial {see Frontispiece) bears the twelve clock 
hours, and the thirty-two points of the mariner's 
compass plus the extra points needed to fill out 
the hour divisions. Each hour, containing three 
compass points, is labelled with the special qual- 
ity bestowed upon it by Bacon in the Alphabet 
of Nature. 

22 



SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER 

Clock time and compass time are both set on 
the Dial, as well as the points of the compass. 
Letters of the alphabet are placed at the inter- 
sections of point lines and circles on the compass, 
the chief circles seen on the compass being used, 
and the letters beginning at point i on compass 
and clock, and at the end of the line nearest the 
center of the Dial. The Dial is finished by a 
pointer (like a clock-hand), which is a point of 
connection between the Dial and the text of the 
plays of Shakespeare, and is a Question-mark. 

Bacon's Alphabet of Nature describes twelve 
"Inquisitions" — another word for questions — and 
the Dial pointer keeps a tally with the Question- 
marks in the First Folio of Shakespeare, printed 
in 1623. The Question-marks are counted from 
the first one in each play straight through to the 
last, and by their context these tally at every few 
questions with the qualities of the Hour divi- 
sions at which the count has arrived. In other 
words, the Inquisitions, or Questions, follow round 
and round the Dial, with no break in continuity 
and purpose, and with no failure to link themselves 
plainly to the Dial Hours at every few counts, 
and in every one of the thirty-six plays of the 
Folio. This is the Hour count. 

A second count, corresponding to the minute 
hand of a clock but not indicated on the Dial- 
chart, is tallied with the speeches, or speakers, 
in the text. This second count follows the com- 
pass points, and is called the Speech count. A 

23 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

third, or Personal count, is kept of the speeches 
made by each character. The Hour count travels 
a round of twelve, and the Speech count a round 
of thirty-six, these rounds being repeated many 
times in the course of a play. The number of 
Question-marks varies from 195 in Tempest to 
552 in Othello. 

Modern editing has so changed the plays from 
their Folio punctuation, capitalization, and spell- 
ing that the cipher is not easily seen in some 
copies. But with the counts given here, it will be 
possible to tally many text references with the 
corresponding Dial group, or compass point. 

The Folio edition of Porter and Clarke may be 
used for verifying the Dial cipher. Many libraries 
have fac-simile copies of the First Folio itself. 
Hudson's edition needs but few changes in order 
to follow with it the Speech and Personal counts. 
Notes on such changes to be made in three plays 
are given at the end of this book, and also the 
complete Question count necessary in order to 
verify the Dial in Macbeth. Almost any good, 
unexpurgated edition of "Shakespeare" will show 
some tallies, especially in the first part of a play, 
or in the speeches made as characters enter for the 
first time. My quotations follow often the print- 
ing of the First Folio, but where capitals are not 
important to some cipher proof I have used in 
many cases the modern form. 

The examples given here in proof of the cipher's 
presence are not isolated nor accidental, but are 

24 



SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER 

chosen from a straight tabulation I have made that 
includes every speech in the Folio and every one 
of the more than ten thousand questions in the 
plays, with a detailed study and tallying on the 
Dial. Not every Q (Question-mark) tallies, but 
every few Q's do tally, and the tallying hits at 
the hour of that particular Q in its order. 

Rules for the Cipher Count. 

The Q's, or Interrogation-marks, are numbered 
for identification straight through a play. The 
Hours at which they move along the Dial are 
numbered in rounds of 12's, and each round starts 
afresh at Point i after reaching Hour 12, Omega. 
This is the governing count, around which the 
literary framework is made. Hints for qualities 
to look for in the Shakespeare text and to tally at 
these Hour points will be found in the chapter on 
"Dial Hours in the Text." 

The Speeches, or parts spoken by characters 
in the text, and in order straight through the play, 
are numbered on rounds of 36, following the com- 
pass points straight around the Dial to point 36 
and then jumping back to point i for a new start. 
Speech points may be identified by the number of 
the Q at which they occur, as Q25, H (Hour) i. 
Speech point 23- ^y means of the Speech count, 
tallies are made that confirm the Q count, amplify 
it, or give other exact detail as to time, compass, 
letter, and figure references. A speech is counted as 
one speech while controlled by the speaker's name. 

25 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

A Song is treated like a spoken passage if the 
name of the singer is definitely set by the song, 
or if it contains Q's, otherwise not. 

The Personal count, like the Speech count, 
follows the round of the ^^ compass points, and 
starts anew at point i after each full round. This 
is the count of each speech made by each character 
in the play, treated as his own individual count. 
Each character makes his first entrance at point 
I, no matter how far along in the play he enters. 
After an exit, the character re-enters at the exact 
point on the Dial at which he made the exit, and 
his next speech thereafter advances him to the 
next point. Many Alpha-Omega references in the 
plays will be found to be made by minor characters 
who come in as if needed to make the reference, 
and who perhaps remain but for a few counts. 
The Personal count often shows striking coin- 
cidences, agreeing with or improving the other 
two counts, as if there were a movement of small 
puppets about the board, whose business was 
also to fetch and carry letters, form words at 
groups, tally with peculiar words and puns in the 
text, and, at great moments, line up in visible 
form on the Dial as if to point with a finger at the 
important place. Mention of "hands" in the 
text often hints at significant arrangements of the 
Dial hands that count the Hour, Speech, and Per- 
sonal counts on the chart. 

Bear in mind the fact that all these counts begin 
slowly, as if for reasons of caution. One may go 

26 



SOME REASONS FOR A CIPHER 

twice about the Dial and find at first but a few 
tallies. The tally becomes more close as the play 
heightens in interest, and is stressed at the finest 
moments. 

The cipher proof is here developed on the Dial 
in six ways; 

1. "Gates" and "Keys" mentioned in the text 

of Shakespeare are tallied with the Gates 
and Keys on the Dial. 

2. Time references are tallied with the compass 

or clock time set on the Dial. 

3. Compass points in the text are tallied with the 

compass points on the Dial. 

4. Bacon acrostics visible in the text, and the 

names "Francis" and "Bacon" are tallied 
with the letters forming the same acrostics 
and names on the Dial. 

5. Certain capitals indicated in the text are 

duplicated at their correct tally place on the 
Dial, and lines traced between them on the 
Dial-chart result in "Maze Pictures" or 
designs that form Bacon signatures, called 
here Blazons. 

6. Literary evidence is brought forward, tally- 

ing with the Hour groups on the Dial the 
context of the same Hour groups within 
the text, and often proving most effective in 
the specially significant passages of the plays. 
It is a satisfaction to add that the Dial cipher 
upholds the evidence of much Baconian proof al- 
ready presented by others. 

27 



CHAPTER II 
THE GATES AND KEYS 

The Gates traced on the Dial-chart tally in 
a large proportion of cases with the use of the 
word Gates itself in the text of the First Folio. 
They serve to verify the correct arrangement of 
letters about the Dial-chart. Their presence on 
the chart gives a sense of reality that is increasingly 
felt as one studies the plays. 

It would be logical to insert here the Alphabet 
of Nature; but remembering Bacon's own theory 
of the visualizing mind, I have shown the great 
Gates on the Dial first. {See Figs, i and 2.) It 
will be easier to interpret the clue after a slight 
acquaintance with the Dial itself. 

The many references in the text of Shakespeare 
to watches, clocks, "Time", with capital or with- 
out, telling the time, and appointments made for 
certain times, as well as the unusually frequent 
questions about the time on the clock, serve to 
hint at some form of time-piece connected with 
a cipher. Bacon gives in his Alphabet of Nature a 
list of twelve Greek letters, with the character- 
istics he ascribes to them as titles belonging to 
something; but no one has known to what. 

These titles are mentioned in this order: Tau, 
concerning the Earth, Upsilotiy concerning the 

28 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

Water, Phi, the Air, Chiy the Fire, Psiy Celestial 
Bodies, Omega^ Meteors, Alpha^ Concerning Being 
and Not Being, Beta^ Possible and Impossible, 
Gamma, Much and Little, Delta, Eternal and 
Momentary, Epsilon, Natural and Monstrous, 
Zeta, Natural and Artificial. The first six he 
calls "Threefold" and the last six "Fourfold". 
Tau he calls the 67th Tau. Alpha is the 73rd 
Alpha. 

In other words, if Bacon were giving a clue 
to a clock Dial he could hardly do better than to 
number his Hour titles thus. Alpha 73 may be 
the hour i of a fourth day of time, twenty-four 
being the number assigned to one day of hours. 
Tau 67 would be in the third series or third- 
twenty-four, and on a clock face it would stand 
at seven o'clock. The simple arrangement of 
Bacon's list of titles around a clock face, instead 
of in two tablets, formed the basis of the Dial 
cipher. {See Frontispiece.) This soon proved its 
power to tally at some points with the text al- 
lusions in the play. But an under-rhythm soon be- 
came apparent, and Measure for Measure was the 
first play that gave hints of the definite compass 
movement. Verifications of time were tallied; 
points of the wind, letters capitalized in the text 
and many double meanings and puns, as well as 
references within the often long sections controlled 
by the Question count, at once began to emerge 
by tally. 

The Gates, as gates of a city or a castle, were 
29 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

in the time of Elizabeth heavy and substantial 
things, and a certain warrant for drawing them 
out on the Dial may perhaps be given in Measure 
for Measure, when the Duke speaks of "Making 
practise on the Times, To draw with idle spiders* 
strings Most ponderous and substantial things?" 
This is Question 241, Hour i. 

The compass Dial joined to the clock Dial car- 
ries out another of Bacon's expressed ideas. In 
the Advancement oj Learning, he writes; "Of these 
(ciphers) there are many kinds: simple ciphers; 
ciphers mixed with non-significant characters; 
wheel-ciphers; key-ciphers; word-ciphers; and the 
like. But the virtues required in them are three: 
that they be easy and not laborious to write; 
that they be safe, and impossible to be deciphered; 
and lastly that they be, if possible, such as not 
to raise suspicion." 

He adds, "Thoughts may be communicated at 
any distance or place by means of objects per- 
ceptible either to the eye or ear, provided only that 
those objects are capable of two differences, as 
by bells, trumpets, gunshots and the like." (Sped- 
ding's Philosophical Works of Lord Bacon, Vol. 
IV, page 444.) Bacon has a long treatise on the 
compass and the history of the winds, full of 
cipher hints. The union of clock and compass 
forms a case of "two differences" in a visible thing. 

But of course one cannot expect to set a com- 
pass face down upon a clock face and have both 
behave as if nothing had happened. There are 

30 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

readjustments to be made. It is the clock, not 
the compass, that gets pushed about, for the last 
Hour, 12, coincides with the first Hour, i, on the 
Dial, and the three compass divisions belonging 
rightfully to Hour 12 are thus set behind the let- 
ters in Hour i. Alpha is a visible hour on the 
Dial, but Omega is "invisible," and many refer- 
ences to "invisible" things in the Folio are made 
at the top of the Dial, in the tally of the text. 

A three-in-one effect is also at the top of the 
Dial, because of the fact that the third point 
in Hour 11, Psi, is overlapped by the first point 
of Alpha, Hour i . Psi, Alpha, and Omega have 
thus some common interests, being inextricably 
joined. This forms the basis for many references 
to triple or triangle arrangements found in the 
plays. 

The compass is the mariner's compass, copied 
as accurately as possible. The main circles of the 
compass are taken for the letters. There must 
be letters, for Bacon distinctly names the cipher 
an "Alphabet of Nature." It is sensible to place 
the letter A at the highest line, or line i, and at 
its end nearest the center, since at first one cannot 
be sure how many circles will be necessary to the 
Dial; they might be increased, but practically, 
seven times about the Dial makes up the needed 
tally of letters, here. Note the affirmatives ''Yea" 
and "y^fj" at point i and the subjoined "A^o" 
at Zeta, — and in Alpha, also, "Nay'\ 

In starting the second round of letters about 

31 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

the Dial, it will be seen that the G steps up one 
circle and then H continues on; this stepping up 
of the letters at point i is another Dial fact that, 
like the "invisible" Omega, amounts in practice 
to a Dial trick, and both have probably helped 
to guard the secret of the cipher. For no straight 
count of either clock or compass points can be 
made to tally with text references until the count 
on points has gone through to the last point, 2^3 
of Omega, and then returned suddenly to point i 
and started anew at Alpha. This means that 
point I, 23i 12, which is the triple truth about 
point I on the Dial, may be struck by a text tally 
more than once, as will be shown later. The move- 
ment back to point i, after passing it and going on 
to ^Sj is a safety move, and is called here "cast- 
ling", since it is noted in the text by frequent 
allusions to "castles" and "castling" that seem to 
suggest the movement made in chess, and known 
as "to castle," by which the King is safe-guarded. 

The compass claims the line i as its North point, 
or North Star. 

The first play printed in the Folio is Tempest. 
The 25th Q in the play would strike at Hour i, 
having just finished two rounds of 12. This Q 
is therefore at point i, in Alpha, and due North. 
It will be of help in proving these tallies if the 
Dial-chart shown in the front part of the book is 
used as one reads. 

Here at Q 25, H i, Prospero says that his 
"Zenith" depends upon a most "auspicious star.'* 

32 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

The Q's travel round the Dial again and come once 
more to the top of the Dial, at Q 36, H 12, the 
Alpha-Omega group. Here Prospero uses the 
phrase "To run upon the sharp wind oi the North.'' 
Thus in the first 36 Q's of the first play, the facts 
of point I on the Dial are suggested. 

The North Gate is also set here, as will be seen 
in the Compass chapter. But Bacon also gives 
to this Alpha-Omega group a distinct moral and 
religious significance. It is the height of the Dial, 
the place of Truth and Love. Christmas references 
are often tallied here. 

At Q 13, H I, ("Partizan?") in Hamlet, come 
the words, "Some says, that ever gainst that 
season comes Wherein our Saviour s Birth is 
celebrated^ the Bird of Dawning singeth all night 
long^ ... So hallowed, and so gracious is 
the time" 

Alpha-Omega is not only the Dial's First and 
Last, the Beginning and Ending, but it is Day 
and Night, Waking and Sleeping, Midnight and 
Daybreak. Hour Omega carries the compass 
hours of earliest morning, and is thus referred to 
a multitude of times by mention of actual hours 
in the text at these points. It is to be noted that 
the compass itself is divided into quarters, and 
into halves, each half marked by an Hour 12, at 
the top and bottom of the Dial, while both 
Hour 3 and Hour 9 carry compass time six 
o'clock. The real compass is thus kept in its 
integrity on the Dial. 

* 33 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

If there were to be a "Narrow Gate," in the 
Scriptural sense of it, made on the Dial-chart, 
it would be placed quite naturally at this Alpha- 
Omega group. The letters of the word Gate, with 
connecting lines traced between them, do form 
a long, narrow, lane-like track into the Alpha 
country. A stretch of fancy might call it the 
opening of a Gate itself, or the path between the 
walls of a Gate. It also looks like a needle, a 
dagger, or a finger. {See Fig. i) 

Other Gates are at Hours 9 and 10 {Fig. /), 
where the opening is broad; at Hours 5 and 7, 
where the two resemble double Gates, with a 
square or courtyard between. {See Fig. 2) There 
is a side Gate at Gamma also, easily traced. 

Now in Richard //, at Q 216, H 12 ("he not.?") 
the count reaches the Gate at Alpha-Omega. 
Here Richard muses: "And do set the Faith itself 
Against the Faith; as thus. Come little ones: 
and then again. It is as hard to come, as for a 
Camel To thred the postern of a Needless eye.^' 
This would not be used as a "Gate" reference, 
since it says "postern"; but, nevertheless, in the 
meaning and tally it is a good allusion to the 
"Narrow Gate" seen on the Dial at Alpha. And, 
in working fact, posterns in the text are used 
to tally at the Gates, and even doors and windows 
are so placed in many striking passages in the 
plays. The Gates at each side of Zeta are much 
stressed as the scene of meetings, either before a 
castle or city wall or in a garden, a forest, a pub- 

34 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

lie square, a banqueting hall, whatever the par- 
ticular need of the special play suggested. 

When in Richard II the sad queen walks in the 
Garden, she enters the Epsilon gate, and speaks 
first at Zeta, Q 126, H 6 ("Care?") The ancient 
gardener comes in and later she exclaims to him, 
"Thou old Adams likeness, set to dress this gar- 
den". But, when she speaks of the garden of Eden 
thus, she has reached the top of the Dial, where 
Hour II is the place of "Celestial" things, and a 
part of the Heaven at Alpha-Omega, for the 
Q is 131, H II, and immediately the Queen takes 
herself directly upon Alpha by asking, ''What 
Ever 

In As You Like It Orlando is asked by his 
irate brother, "Do you know where you are sir?" 
He retorts: composedly enough, and with Dial 
veracity, "O very well sir, here in your garden" 
for he is at the moment exactly at Q 6, H 6, 
("sir?") the Zeta garden. 

It is not long before the Gates begin to give 
the Dial-chart an aspect of reality. And the con- 
viction grows that it was also, to Bacon himself, 
a species of stage, a miniature scene, shifting 
with every play, yet keeping certain distinct and 
vivid possibilities ever the same, certain places 
on the stage floor for certain well understood 
events and actions. 

A frequent illustration is in the recurrence of 
incidents or moods at the same place on the Dial, 
in repeated rounds of twelves. 

3S 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Thus in Twelfth Night, Viola is told by the Duke 
to address her "gate" unto Olivia, and the Folio 
spelling of "Gait" as "Gate" allows a pun, at 
this place, that is often used. They stand here 
at the hall at Zeta, Q 42, H 6 ("hoa?") At Q 51, 
H 3, ("Malvolio ?") Lady Olivia is told that some 
one waits "at the gate". At Q 54, H 6, she in- 
quires, "What is he at the gate, cousin?" At 
Q 57, H 9, ("lethargy?") she is again told that 
there is "one at the gate", this being at the West 
Gate, directly opposite that Gamma or East Gate 
at which Viola had first sought admittance. 
Perhaps the persistent young page has tried all 
the entrances! At any rate, when Viola actually 
enters the house she does so at the identical East 
Gate, with her own inquiry about the Lady, 
"which is she?" (Q 63, H 3.) 

Now Olivia, still at the prominent double en- 
trance, or hall, or center of the stage, is at Q 66, 
H 6 ("house?") when she reproves Viola for being 
"saucy" at her "gates." But when Viola declares 
that if she herself were the Duke who is denied a 
sight of the Lady she would build a "willow cabin" 
at the "gate", she speaks directly outside the 
Zeta courtyard, being by Q 77, H 5, ("you?") at 
the gate Epsilon, without, and not within, the 
gateway. This is too fine a setting to have chanced 
by accident. The plays abound in such miniature 
stage effects, achieved by the return of the Q 
to some chosen spot on the Dial. 

In Twelfth Night even the tragic groups of the 

36 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

Dial, which will be shown later to be Chi, the place 
of the Fire, and Epsilon, the place of the things 
Monstrous, are treated humorously. When 
Sir Toby says to Maria, as a compliment, that 
he will follow her "to the gates of Tartar^ thou ex- 
cellent devil of wit,'' he speaks at the place of many 
devils, H 9, Q 141, ("him?") where the Broad 
Gate begins to be seen, before it spreads out across 
Chi, Hour 10. 

The Dial cipher undoubtedly has a flavor of 
the old morality play. The Fire at Chi, H 10, is 
stressed as symbolic of evil and punishment, in 
the more serious plays, such as Macbeth. But in 
some cases the Fire here is a happy Fire, that of 
candle-light, the torch light, the Beacon (a pun on 
Bacon) and the hearth. Yet its significance as 
suggestive of Dante's hell is stressed throughout 
the Folio. It is the evil of the world. 

A double interpretation of this Hour 10 is 
given in those familiar words of Portia, in Mer- 
chant of Venice: — "How far that little candle 
throws his beams; so shines a good deed in a 
naughty world." She is at Q 178, H 10, ("go in?") 
and has just said, as she nears her own home, 
"That light you see is burning in my hall." 

The Gate here is the door of her home, though 
it is not mentioned in the text. This shining light 
of home is burning literally on the Dial in the midst 
of "a naughty world." 

The plainest reference to the Broad and Narrow 
Gates is made in All's Well, on a count running 

37 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

from Q 177, H 9, ("with a plot?") to Q 180, H 12, 
("Prince is that?") At Hour 9, Helena refers 
to the gratitude of the King, "which gratitude 
Through. ^infy Tartar's bosom would peep forth." 
The Clown enters, and presently says he "has 
not much skill in grace." He boasts about the 
prince he serves. Asked to explain about his 
master the prince, he says that he is the "black 
prince, sir, alias the prince of darkness, alias the 
devil." He continues at Q 180, H 12, "I am a wood- 
land fellow sir, that always loved a great fire^ 
and the master that I speak of ever keeps a good 
fire, but sure he is the Prince of the world . . . 
I am J or the house with the narrow gate^ which I 
take to be too little for pomp to enter; some that 
humble themselves may, but the many will be too 
chill and tender, and they'll be for the flowery way 
that leads to the broad gate and tho. great fire ^ 

It will be seen that the three letters used in 
spelling Pomp cover a space slightly smaller than 
that of the gate-opening at Chi, on the inner 
circle. Pomp may enter at the Chi, or Broad 
Gate. The Humble may be seen bending them- 
selves about, and somewhat painfully, beside the 
Narrow Gate. In each place the letters of Bacon's 
name are seen in a cube of nine letters, together 
with the letters of the "Hang-Hog," a jest that 
is associated with the family name. Line 34, at 
which the needle or finger points, is, in its 
strictly mechanical interpretation, both the line 

38 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

Omega 34, and Alpha 2, the only line on the 
Dial with both F and B upon it, and this only pos- 
sible because of the "invisible" Omega trick. 
There is perhaps a hint that F. Bacon meant, like 
the Clown, to aim for the Narrow Gate. 

The Bacon cube or group of nine letters is seen 
on the Dial at Alpha, at Zeta, at Upsilon and 
at Chi. At each place the text tallies many times 
by a designed arrangement of capitals, and of 
direct phrases, as well as by bringing the actual 
names Francis and Bacon to strike at these 
groups. One mission of the Gate is to show these 
signature effects, or to call attention to them. 

That Lord Bacon meant to bring Gates, as 
GateSy definitely before the minds of possible de- 
cipherers seems evident from many peculiar uses 
of the word in his acknowledged works. One such 
example may be quoted from the Novum Organuniy 
(Montagu's Life of Bacon^ Vol. Ill, p. 402) where 
Bacon explains that as "sight" holds the "first 
rank among the senses" we must "seek principally 
helps for that sense." In his note 52, p. 424, he 
says that among "twenty-seven instances'' that 
should be studied, a few special ones, including 
those of ^ow^r and of the ''gate'' must be "collected 
immediately." 

"For", he declares, "these either assist and cure 
the understanding and senses, or furnish our gen- 
eral practice. . . . For these instances, hon- 
ored and gifted with such prerogatives, are like 

39 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

the soul amid the vulgar crowd of instances, and, 
as we observed, a few of them are worth a multi- 
tude of the others." 

On the Dial the two words Gate and Power 
form together a sort of garland that runs about 
the circles, the E being common to both words. 
Together they place the letters in the lines as 
correctly set, tallying with the Dial. But Power 
is also symbolized by the Key. The Key is seen 
spelled on the Dial in one line at several points, 
forming a close second verification allied with the 
Gates. In Othello^ at the moment when Othello is 
interrupted in his first rage at Desdemona, he 
turns to Emilia, as she enters, and flings at her, 
"You that have the office opposite to St. Peter 
and keep the Gate of Hell ... I pray you turn 
the key and keep our counsell." He speaks at 
Q 379, H 7, ("possible?") in Tau, that Earth he is 
himself turning into a "hell." Gate and Key are 
both in Tau. Emilia, by her Personal count, 
stands at point 30, in Chi the place of Fire. 

The Gates are so prominent on the Dial that it 
may seem almost impossible at first sight to 
attach any importance to a tally with them in the 
text. If it were a mere matter of saying that the 
word Gates was used at this and that Hour, 
there might be some perplexity. But the Gates 
tally by a distinct context, setting certain phrases 
and ideas and comparisons in certain definite places 
on the Dial, throughout the Folio. 

40 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

When Beatrice, in Much Ado, is teased about 
being on the road to hell, she is telling the Dial 
truth when she retorts, at Q 51, H 3, ("with 
him?") "No, but to the ^<2/d' .... and there 
will the Devil meet me .... and say, get you 
to heaven Beatrice .... and away to St. Peter." 

The East Gate is used consistently for the Gate 
of Morning, of Sunrise, and of the High Altar 
which may symbolize the entrance to a new life. 
It is Heaven viewed from the earth, the visible 
entrance to Life in Death, as Alpha-Omega is 
the more solemn aspect of Life and Death. 
The whole quarter of the Dial, from the High 
East at Alpha and the first daybreak sign to the 
point 9 in Gamma, is used with a sense of morning, 
of new life, and of earthly beauty, as will be shown 
in the compass references later. 

Geographically the East Gate is the approach to 
the high hill, or the High East, or the heights of 
the Dial, Alpha. Often in the Folio there is a 
cross-Dial reference, as if one stood at the East 
Gate and looked out toward the morning air, the 
Air having been set at Phi, Hour 9, and the com- 
bination of the two groups being natural on the 
Dial. No Hour on the Dial is left as wholly un- 
desirable. 

So in Hamlet, when the Ghost tells Hamlet the 
story of the murder, he is at Q 75, H 3, East Gate, 
when he says, "But soft, methinks I scent the 
Mornings Air." He then speaks of the poison that 

41 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

flowed like quicksilver "Through the natural 
Gates and Allies of the body." This is the only 
mention of a Gate in Hamlet, 

In Cymbeline there are three Gate references. 
The first is at Q 87, H 3, "It is almost morning 
is't not?" The reply is, "Day, my Lord." Clock 
time here gives three o'clock; compass time sets 
it between 4:30 and 6, reason for frequent in- 
quiries of this nature. 

Then comes the song, "Hark, hark the Lark at 
Heaven's gate sings. And Phoebus gins arise." 

Later, at Q 135, H 3 ("and hour?") the old man 
wakens the boys for their early morning walk, 
their "Mountain sport", up to "yond hill." He 
says to them, "this gate Instructs you how t' adore 
the Heavens, and bows you to a mornings holy 
office. . . . The Gates of Monarchs are Arched 
so high. . . . Hail thou fair Heaven." And the 
boys in turn exclaim, "Hail Heaven!" 

The third and last Gate in Cymbeline brings in 
the text capitals of the Bacon letters at Q 238, 
H 10 ("afeard?") by the ingenious mention of 
"setting heads" "on the Gates of Luds-Towne". 
Here, as in many other cases of "heads" and "be- 
headings", the meaning is the simple one of a 
riddle, the heads being the capital letters of a 
name. Many curious and bloodthirsty passages 
in the plays are thus vastly mollified in Dial fact. 
Cymbeline is the last play in the Folio, and this 
bringing in of the Capitals at the Bacon cube of 
nine letters is entirely fitting. 

42 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

There are but three Gates in Lear. The first 
is at Lear's anguished cry, "O Lear, Lear, Lear! 
Beat at this Gate that let thy Folly in, and thy 
dear Judgment out." Where should this refer- 
ence fall on the Dial-chart? It does fall at O io6 
("show?"), and Hour lo, the place of the Broad 
Gate. The second reference is at Q 274, H 10 
("King?"), and seems meant to tally a second 
time, as if for proof: "Hot Questrists after him, 
met him at the gate." The third and last is again 
at the Broad Gate. At Q 285, H 9, ("Dover?") 
comes this: "If Wolves had at thy gates howled 
that stern time Thou shouldst have said, good 
Porter, turn the Key." Here the Broad Gate is 
reached three times in the play, with the Key at- 
tached. 

Bartlett's Concordance gives, in all, 126 Gates 
mentioned in the Folio. The word "Gait", spelled 
"Gate", is used 32 times, and is often arranged as 
a pun to lead to a genuine Gate. Of the 126 
Gates, I do not know one that does not identify 
itself accurately as belonging, by a near context, 
with the Dial hour at which it strikes. This is 
usually a tally by the Hour count, yet the Speech 
count often seconds the Hour count, or some- 
times stresses a fuller interpretation of the passage 
at still another group. There are indications that 
the Dial Hours, with their almost uncanny habit 
of fastening themselves in the mind, may have 
inspired some of the most striking allusions and 
similes that the playwright uses. 

43 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Only a few other Gates can here be given, and 
briefly. The first Gates in the Folio are in Tem- 
pest, at Q 21, H 9 ("hear?"), and are "the gates of 
Milan", opened to thrust out Prospero and his 
child. This is the only Gate reference in the play. 

The double Gate at Zeta is often used in the his- 
torical plays. In King John, "Welcome before the 
gates of Angiers, Duke," is at Q 30, H 6 ("Faulcon- 
bridge?"); the "city's eyes, your winking gates" 
are at Hour 3, perhaps suggested by a rousing 
from slumber at the morning placement. 
"Counter check before your gates" is also at 
Hour 3, and "rammed up our gates" is at Hour 5, 
while a second "Open your gates" is brought to 
Hour 6, Zeta, and to Hour 5 again "Ope your 
gates." 

The "Gates of Mercy" are at Psi-Alpha on 
the Dial, and in Henry V, at Q 49, H i ("Town?") 
it is said, "The Gates of Mercy shall be all shut 
up." In J Henry VI the cry of York, about to be 
murdered, at Q 69, H 9, ("Northumberland?") is 
tragically set at the Broad Gate; "Open thy Gate 
of Mercy, gracious God, My Soul flies through 
these wounds, to seek out thee." The Queen 
then exclaims, "Ofi^ with his head, and set it 
on York Gates." 

When, in j Henry VI, the demand is made of 
the besieged city, "Open the Gates, we . . . 
are friends", at Q 237, H 9, the place is at the 
entrance to the Gate. The Mayor comments in 
the form of an inquiry that takes him to the Gate 

44 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

so widely opened at Chi, "I say you so?" (Q 238, 
H, 10), and at once adds, "The Gates shall then 
be opened." He is then told, "These Gates must 
not be shut," and, "Yield me up the Keys." Here 
the Folio directions take the trouble to insert, 
''Takes his Keys." The Speech point strikes ex- 
actly at point i,2'> ^^^ ^^7 1^"^j which is set at 
the high place of the Dial. The Folio directions 
had also taken the pains to say, of the Mayor, 
"He descends." Here the top of the Dial is like 
the top of a city wall. 

As a matter of interest, it may be added that 
when Jessica, in Merchant of Venice, looks down 
from her window at Lorenzo, before tossing down 
the Casket so casually, she is at the top of the 
Dial, and the Folio directions add "Jessica 
above" at Q 47, H 11 ("within.?"). 

An hour at which no Gate is seen sometimes 
gets special notice. When Viola says that she 
would "answer" with "gate and entrance" but is 
"prevented," she is certainly "prevented" by the 
Q's, for there is no "Gate" at Q 148, H 4, in 
Twelfth Night. By her Personal count Viola 
stands at the Alpha Gate, point i. 

The word Key is used forty-one times in the 
Folio, according to Bartlett's Concordance. Of 
these all tally clearly and exactly either by Hour, 
Speech, or Personal count with the Keys spelled 
on the Dial lines. A few cases of a double verifi- 
cation by two counts at once are also found. 

45 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Good examples of tally by Hour count are 
frequent: "The Key of Officer and office," in 
Tempest is the first one in the Folio, and comes at 
Q 19, H 7 ("attend me?"). Other Keys at Hour 
7, Tau, are "Key of untuned cares?", in Comedy 
of Errors at Q 199; "Take this Key", in Love's 
Labor's Lost at Q 67 ("see?"); "These Counties 
were the Keys of Normandy", at Q 7 ("dis- 
course?") in 2 Henry VI; "Tuned in self-same 
key", at Q 79 ("greatness?") in Troilus and 
Cressida; and "Ne'er turns the key", in Lear^ at 
Q 175 ("here?"). 

The lettering of the Dial, beginning at point i, 
with A, involves a stepping up upon the higher 
circle for each letter in the round as it reaches 
point I again. This is a Dial trick of much use 
in cipher puns. It is noticed in Merry JVives of 
Windsor, at Q 227, H 11 ("Buck?"). The word 
Keys is here made at points 31 and i,!^. Ford says, 
in his jealous anger, as if aware of a stepping up 
at this place, both for the word Ke-Eys and the 
Alphabet itself, "Here, here, here be my keys, 
ascend my Chambers, search, seek, find out." He 
cries again, "True, up Gentlemen." Page ad- 
vises the others to "see the issue of this search," 
and Mistress Page herself sets the count exactly 
at Hour 12 by asking her Question, "Is there not 
a double excellency in this?", and makes a double 
proof as she speaks. 

In Comedy of Errors, the words, "Give her this 
key" are said at Q 121, H i ("Madman?") and 

46 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

the Speech count strikes point 31, almost a par- 
allel case, since i and 12 are the same thing at the 
top of the Dial. 

A third example is in / Henry VI ^ at Q 85, H i, 
("company?") where at the command "Bring the 
Keys to me," the Speech point again touches 
point 31. The same divided set of Keys is seen 
at Beta-Gamma, points 5 and 7. "Take these 
keys" is at Speech point 5 in Romeo and 
Juliet^ and Q 294, ("shroud?"). "Bunches of 
Keys at their girdles," is in Beta, Q 26, H 2, 
("Security?") in 2 Henry IV. "Key of all my 
counsells," in Henry V is at Gamma, Q 27, H 3, 
("creature?"). 

When the frightened youth in Richard II im- 
plores the King, "Give me leave that I may turn 
the key,'' he is at Q 207, H 3, ("fault?") and 
Speech count 12. The King, in answering, reaches 
point 13, the Key-line at Epsilon, and as if hand- 
ing him the Key from that place, says to him, 
"Have thy desire." 

Other good point tallies are at point 7, in Mid- 
summery Q 100 ("innocence?") the phrase being 
"both in one key;" "Wears a key in his ear", at 
point I, Q 253, ("child?") in Much Ado; "Keys 
of that hung in Chains," at Speech point 1,3^ or i> 
and Q 232, ("Honesty is?") in Winters Tale. 

In Merchant of Venice , Shylock speaks of a 
"bondman's key" at Q 29, H 5, Epsilon, ("du- 
cats?") and Speech point 22. He says to Jessica, 
"There are my Keys," at Epsilon, Q 41, H 5, 

47 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

("will?"). The first suitor demands, "Deliver me 
the key," at Q 62, H 2, ("her?"), and Speech 
point 21. Portia, at this demand, is by her Per- 
sonal count at the very Key-line 19, in Tau, often 
used as England itself and to which the suitor 
now refers. The second suitor is at Q 6^, again 
at Epsilon, H 5, ("honor?") when he says "Give 
me a key for this," and the Speech point is 5, 
tallying the Ke of the Key at Hour 2 already used. 

Bassanio, the welcome suitor, has no key men- 
tioned in the text. But the Dial supplies him 
with one. For he is at Tau, H 7, when he actually 
opens the casket and exclaims, "What find I 
here?" It is as if Portia handed the Key to him 
at the right instant, for they are at Zeta, almost 
at the Tau Keys, the perfect key-line of the Dial, 
when she shows her delight at the possibility of 
his choosing wisely. 

The stress on Hour 5 is again seen in All's 
Well, where, at Q 5, H 5, ("that?") and Speech 
point 22, it is written, "And keep thy friend Under 
thy own life's key." 

The other Key in Othello is placed with a 
double proof. "Lock and Key of Villainous Se- 
crets" is at Q 359, H II ("nothing?") and also at 
Speech point ^Ti- 

The word "Key-hole" is used once in the Folio, 
at Q 211, H 7 ("do so"?) when Rosalind says, 
"'Twill out at the key-hole," in As You Like It. 

The word "Key-cold" is also used but once. 



THE GATES AND KEYS 

It is given a sterner accent when Anne, standing 
by the body of her murdered husband, exclaims, 
"Poor key-cold Figure of a holy King," and is 
placed by the Speech count at ^^y ^^^ intense 
North and icy cold of the Dial. The Q is i6, H 4 
in Richard Illy and Delta, Hour 4, is consistently 
the place where Justice, the substitution of eternal 
justice in place of momentary injustice, is plainly 
set on the Dial. 

A few of these Gates with their appropriate 
Keys do in actual fact appear to be worth "a 
multitude of other instances." But the others 
are not lacking. 

Yet before tallying clock time and compass 
points with the Dial, it will be wise to read the 
Alphabet of Nature itself and to see what basis 
that gives for these interpretations of Shakes- 
peare's text. 



49 



CHAPTER III 
CIPHER CLUES IN BACON'S WORKS 

Clues are meant to be baffling. They must be 
of several types, in order to attract at least one 
out of many types of readers. There must be 
enough of them to afford security, to elude sus- 
picion, and yet to rouse the interest. 

Lord Bacon could write most clear and forceful 
English. When he did not, he had his special 
reasons for it. 

My first step was to study carefully his ac- 
knowledged works, including his correspondence 
as given by his biographers. I noted passages 
that seemed like pseudo-science, or garbled phil- 
osophy, or that were heavy and involved in their 
sentence construction. Many such passages give 
clues to the Dial cipher. 

Extracts showing his interest in the subject of 
cipher and his need of a cipher were also taken. 
Bacon had several distinct styles of writing, a 
formal court style, a friendly and whimsical one 
for his intimates, and a direct, positive manner in 
his legal material. Only in the plays did the whole 
rich human personality find its expression. 

A letter written by Bacon in 1593 to the Earl 
of Essex uses phrases that show a method of con- 
veying intelligence, and possibly cover a cipher 
message as well. 

50 



CIPHER CLUES IN BACON'S WORKS 

"The late recovered man . . . worketh for 
the Huddler underhand . . . as he that is an 
excellent wherryman, who you know looketh to- 
ward the bridge when he pulleth toward West- 
minster — " "Drawn out the nail which your 
Lordship had driven in for the negative of the 
Huddler." A postscript says, "Let not my jargon 
privilege my letter from burning, because it is 
not such but the light showeth through." 

In 1 62 1, two years before the Folio was printed, 
and about the time at which Bacon was working 
on the Alphabet of Nature^ he wrote to his good 
friend and critic, Toby Mathew, who probably 
knew his cipher, if anyone did, thus: "If upon 
your repair to the court (whereof I am right glad) 
you have any speech with the Marquis of me, I 
pray place the alphabet (as you can do it right 
well) in a frame, to express my love faithful and 
ardent towards him. And, for York House, that 
whether in a straight line, or a compass line, I 
meant it his lordship in the way which I thought 
might please him best." 

In 1622, only one year before the printing of the 
Folio, another correspondent who may have 
known his cipher wrote a letter to him employing 
possible Dial words, the hint that Bacon might 
need help in reading being perhaps an excuse for 
bringing in the word Key. The Alpha-Omega of 
the Dial is closely connected in Bacon's mind 
with the Alpha-Omega of the Book of Revelation, 
and he brings the words "I AM" to join it, as the 

51 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

place of being and not being, in many of the im- 
portant soliloquies of the Folio. 

This letter says, "I have already talked of the 
revelation, and now am to speak in apocalyptical 
language, which I hope you will rightly comment; 
whereof, if you make difficulty, the bearer will 
help you with the key of the cipher. If York 
House were gone, the town were yours; and all 
your straightest shackles cleared off, besides more 
comfort than the city air only. ... I have no 
more to say, but that I am and ever will be — 
etc." (Montagu, Vol. II, p. 145.) 

"No more", a common phrase, was one of the 
first faint clues leading toward the Hour of 
finality on the Dial face, the Zeta that is used as 
the English Zed placed at the end of the twelve 
hours, and called the Zeta 78 by Bacon. In many 
cases the words "No more" fall near the 78th 
Question-mark in the plays, or in a progression 
away from it, and sufficiently often to suggest an 
intention to the decipherer. 

Spedding, in his life of Bacon, quotes Archbishop 
Tenison as having stated that in one copy of 
Bacon's will he left directions that certain friends 
of his at Gray's Inn should be consulted as to 
whether or not the right time for publishing his 
manuscript had come. After Bacon's death one 
Isaac Gruter wrote to Dr. Rawley desiring certain 
information for an edition of Bacon's works at 
which he was then laboring: 

52 



CIPHER CLUES IN BACON'S WORKS 

"But neither shall this design, of setting forth 
in one volume all the Lord Bacon's works, pro- 
ceed without consulting you, and without inviting 
you to cast in your symbol, worthy such an excel- 
lent edition: so that the appetite of the reader 
may be gratified by the pure novelty of so con- 
siderable an appendage. ... I will support the 
wishes of my impatient desire, with hope of seeing 
one day those (issues) which, being committed to 
faithful privacy, wait the time till they may safely 
see the light, and not be stifled in their birth." 

A clue to the Question-marks is given by Bacon 
immediately before the pages treating of ciphers, 
(Spedding, Philosophical Works ^ Vol. IV, p. 444). 
He hints at a study of the "accentuation of sen- 
tences", which has not been made; "And yet it is 
common to all mankind almost to drop the voice 
at the end of a period, to raise it in asking a ques- 
tion, and other things of the kind not a few." 

On the next page he begins to describe the Bi- 
literal cipher, saying, (italics mine), "But for 
avoiding suspicion altogether, I will add another 
contrivance^ which I devised myself when I was 
at Paris, in my early youth, and which I still 
think worthy of preservation. For it has the per- 
fection of a cipher, which is to make anything 
signify anything." Clearly Bacon liked ciphers. 

The punctuation of the First Folio is done with 
a thought of the spoken word, and in guiding the 
reader's imagination it is delicate and stimulating 

53 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

almost beyond belief. It beseeches one to give 
its phrases voice! Bacon was justified in suppos- 
ing that his most sane, accurate, and vividly ex- 
pressive interrogation-marks within the text would 
never lose their meaning and authority. He must 
have felt that in trusting his cipher to them he 
was entrusting it to the most kindly and unerring 
minister of the human voice. 

Bacon's written works also show that his mind 
was richly stored with observations on gestures 
and bodily movements as the result of moral qual- 
ities or strong emotions; that he noted stage ef- 
fects, the influence of light and color, and 
of lively music. This is too often overlooked 
in estimating the value and the type of his 
output. Spedding quotes him as having believed 
that all young people should be taught to act. 

One of Bacon's deliberate stage efi^ects is found 
in the New Atlantis, where the children in their 
mantles of "sea water green," the shining color, 
and the effect of white and of light in the feast 
room of Tirsan, could have been described only 
by a visualizing person with a mind sensitive to 
all forms of human feeling. 

The moment has now come when the reading 
of the Alphabet of Nature cannot be put off, 
senseless though the Fragment may appear to be. 
Montagu follows the original Latin form more 
closely than does Spedding. The italics are mine. 



54 



CIPHER CLUES IN BACON'S WORKS 

THE ABECEDARIUM NATURAE, 
(OR "ALPHABET OF NATURE") 

(Montagu, Life and Works of Lord Bacon, Vol. Ill, 

P- S3'=>) 

A Fragment of a Book written by the Lord 
Verulam, and entitled, The Alphabet of Nature. 

Seeing so many things are produced by the 
earth and waters; so many things pass through 
the air, and are received by it; so many things 
are changed and dissolved hy fire; other inquisi- 
tions would be less perspicuous, unless the nature 
of those masses which so often occur, were well 
known and explained. To these we add inquisi- 
tions concerning celestial bodies, and meteors^ 
seeing they are of greater masses, and of the num- 
ber of catholic bodies. 

Greater Masses. 

The sixty-seventh inquisition. The threefold 
Tau, or concerning the earth. 

The sixty-eighth inquisition. The threefold 
Upsilony or concerning the water. 

The sixty-ninth inquisition. The threefold Phi, 
or concerning the air. 

The seventieth inquisition. The threefold Chi, 
or concerning the^r*?. 

The seventy-first inquisition. The threefold 
Psiy or concerning celestial bodies. 

The seventy-second inquisition. The threefold 
Omega, or concerning meteors. 

55 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Conditions of Entities. 

There yet remain, as subjects of our inquiry, 
in our alphabet, the conditions of beings, which 
seem, as it were, transcendentals, and as such 
touch very Httle of the body of nature. Yet, by 
that manner of inquisition which we use, they will 
considerably illustrate the other objects. 

First, therefore; seeing (as Democritus excel- 
lently observed) the nature of things is in the 
plenty of matter, and variety of individuals large, 
and (as he affirmeth) infinite; but in its coitions 
and species so finite, that it may seem narrow and 
poor; seeing so few species are found, either in 
actual being or impossibility, that they scarce 
make up a muster of a thousand; and seeing nega- 
tives subjoined to affirmatives, conduce much to 
the information of the understanding: it is fit that 
an inquisition be made concerning being, and not 
being. That is the seventy-third in order, and 
reckoned the fourfold Alpha. 

Conditions of beings. The fourfold Alpha; or, 
concerning being, and not being. 

Now, possible and impossible are nothing else 
but conditions potential to being or not potential 
to being. Of this the seventy-fourth inquisition 
consists, and is accounted the fourfold Beta. 

Conditions of beings. The fourfold Beta; or, 
concerning possible and impossible. 

Also, much, little; rare, ordinary; are condi- 
tions potential to being in quantity. Of them let 

56 



CIPHER CLUES IN BACON'S WORKS 

the seventy-fifth inquisition consist, and be ac- 
counted the fourfold Gamma. 

Conditions of beings. The fourfold Gamma; or, 
concerning much and little. 

Durable and transitory, eternal and momen- 
tary, are potential to being in duration. Of these 
let the seventy-sixth inquisition consist, and be 
called the fourfold Delta. 

Conditions of beings. The fourfold Delta; or, 
concerning durable and transitory. 

Natural and monstrous, are potential to being, 
either by the course of nature, or by its deviations 
from it. Of these let the seventy-seventh inquisi- 
tion consist, which is accounted the fourfold 
Epsilon. 

Conditions of beings. The fourfold Epsilon; or, 
concerning what is natural or monstrous. 

Natural and artificial, are potential to being, 
either with or without the operation of man. Of 
these let the seventy-eighth inquisition consist, 
and be accounted the fourfold Zeta. 

Conditions of beings. The fourfold Zeta; or, 
of that which is natural and artificial. 

We have not subjoined examples in the expli- 
cation of the order of this our alphabet: for the 
inquisitions themselves contain the whole array 
of examples. 

It is by no means intended, that the titles, ac- 
cording to which the order of this alphabet is dis- 
posed, should have so much authority given to 
them, as to be taken for true and fixed partitions 

57 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

of things. That were to profess we already knew 
the things after which we inquire; for no man does 
truly dispose of things into their several classes, 
who does not beforehand very well understand 
the nature of them. It is sufficient, if these titles 
be conveniently adapted to the order of inquiry; the 
thing which is at present designed. 

The Rule or Form of the Alphabet. 

After this manner we compose and dispose our 
alphabet: 

We begin solely with history and experiments. 
These, if they exhibit an enumeration and series 
of particular things, are disposed into tables; 
otherwise, they are taken separately and by 
themselves. 

But, seeing we are often at a loss for history 
and experiments, especially such as are luciferous, 
or instructive, and, as we call them, instances of 
the cross; by which the understanding might be 
helped in the knowledge of the true causes of 
things: we propose the task of making new ex- 
periments. These may serve as a history in de- 
sign. For what else is to be done by us who are 
but breaking the ice? 

For the mode of any more abstruse experiment, 
we explain it, lest any mistake arise about it; and 
to the intent, also, that we may excite others to 
excogitate better methods. 

Also, we interspect certain admonitions and 
cautions concerning such fallacies of things, and 

58 



CIPHER CLUES IN BACON'S WORKS 

errors in invention, as we meet with in our 
way. 

We subjoin our observations upon history and 
experiments, that the interpretation of nature may 
be the more in readiness and at hand. 

Likewise, we lay down canons (but not such as 
are fixed and determined) and axioms which are, 
as it were, in embryo: such as offer themselves to 
us in the quality of inquirers, and not of judges. 
Such canons and axioms are profitable, though 
they appear not yet manifest, and upon all ac- 
counts true. 

Lastly: we meditate sometimes certain essays 
of interpretation, though such as are low and of 
small advance, and by no means to be honoured 
(in our opinion) with the very name of interpre- 
tation. 

For, what need have we of arrogance or im- 
posture, seeing we have so often professed that 
we have not such a supply of history and experi- 
ments as is needful; and that, without these, the 
interpretation of nature cannot be brought to 
perfection. Wherefore, it is enough for us if we 
are not wanting to the beginning of things. 

Now, for the sake of perspicuity and order, we 
prepare our way by avenues, which are a kind of 
prefaces to our inquisitions. Likewise, we inter- 
pose bonds of connection, that our inquisitions may 
not seem abrupt and disjointed. 

Also, we suggest for use some hints of -practice. 
Furthermore, we propose wishes of such things as 

59 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

are hitherto only desired and not had, together 
with those things which border on them, for the 
exciting the industry of man's mind. 

Neither are we ignorant that those inquisitions 
are sometimes mutually entangled; so that some 
things of which we inquire, even the same things 
belong to several titles. But we will observe such 
measure, that (as far as may be) we may shun 
both the nauseousness of repetition, and the trou- 
ble of rejection, submitting, notwithstanding, to 
either of these, when, in an argument so obscure, 
there is necessity of so doing, in order to the more 
intelligible teaching of it. 

This is the form and rule of our alphabet. 

May God, the creator, preserver, and renewer 
of the universe, protect and govern this work, 
both in its ascent to his glory, and in its descent to 
the good of mankind, for the sake of his mercy and 
good will to men, through his only Son, Immanuel, 
God with us. 



When Hamlet says, "To be, or not to be, that 
is the Question," he speaks at Question-mark 192, 
Hour 12. The Speech count is at point i. Alpha. 
When Bacon set that sentence at that place, he 
must have felt that he ran a genuine risk of his 
cipher's being discovered too soon. For Alpha- 
Omega on the Dial is the place of being and not 
being, it is "the Inquisition" at that point. 

The death of Hamlet is at Question 456, Hour 
60 



CIPHER CLUES IN BACON'S WORKS 

12, Omega. By the Speech count the words, 
"The rest is silence," come at point ^6y the last 
point in Omega. Here the Folio prints a 3-fold 
Omega; for Omega it gives a large O, followed by- 
three smaller, "o, o, o." Then come the Alpha 
words, 

"And flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest." 



61 



CHAPTER IV 
TELLING THE TIME 

"What is't oclock?" is asked in As You Like It 
at Q 143, H II. The reply comes pat: "You 
should ask me what time o' day, there's no clock 
i' th' Forest." No clock, but certainly a Dial. 

For Jaques returns to his mates at the Forest 
in Zeta, at Q 90, H 6, ("Adam?") and tells about 
the Dial he saw the Fool studying. The Fool 
"drew a dial from his poke, And looking on it with 
lack-luster eye. Says, very wisely, it is ten oclock: 
Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags: 
Tis but an hour ago, since it was nine, And after 
one hour more, twill be eleven. And so from hour 
to hour, we ripe and ripe. And then from hour to 
hour, we rot, and rot. And thereby hangs a tale." 

By the Speech count this is set at point 30, 
which is in Hour 10 on Bacon's Dial. By the 
Hour count it is set at 10 also, a neat bit of veri- 
fication. Jaques goes on to say that he was so 
pleased with the moralizing of the Fool that he 
stayed there laughing *'sans intermission an hour 
by his Dial." This sets the time back an hour on 
the Dial chart, and while Zeta stresses the hour 
11:15 of Jaques return, Epsilon, with its points 
10:30, 9:45, and 9:00, gives correctly the rest of 
the hours named by the Fool, and the time when 

62 



TELLING THE TIME 

he looked at his Dial. By both important counts 
of the cipher, the Fool's Dial shows that he had 
set it by the Dial of Bacon. 

The words of Jaques at point ^^y "O worthy 
Fool," are followed by such as the author might 
well have written with his own personality and 
purpose in mind, and are said at the Alpha signa- 
ture letters of Bacon. 

He says the Fool is "One that hath been a 
Courtier, . . . and in his brain ... he hath 
strange places crammed With observation, the 
which he vents In mangled forms." At the same 
Hour Alpha come the words, "I must have lib- 
erty, ... as large a Charter as the wind, . . . 
Invest me in my motley: Give me leave To speak 
my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse 
the foul body of the infected world. If they will 
patiently receive my medicine." 

Jaques and Falstaffe, Points and Peto are used 
as indicators or pointers on the Dial, stressing the 
round of points or hours, and picking out passages 
worthy of note for the decipherer also. The 
ancient figure of a man, set as a clock pointer on 
a dial face, was often called the "Jack of the 
Clock." 

In Richard II ^ at Q 216, H 12, ("not?") comes 
the soliloquy: "For now hath Time made me his 
numbering clock; My Thoughts, are minutes, and 
with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine 
eyes, the outward Watch, Whereto my finger, like 
a Dial's point. Is pointing still, in cleansing them 

63 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

from tears; Now sir, the sound that tells what 
hour it is. Are clamorous groans, that strike upon 
my heart, Which is the bell: . . . While I stand 
fooling here, his jack o' tK Clocks 

The name Jaques may be made to sound like 
the Jack of Jack Falstaffe. It may also suggest 
the sound, "Shack-" or "Shak- Ques," being in- 
terpreted to mean, "Shake- Qs," or by another 
accent, "Jar- Ques," and give thus a Dial hint of 
jarred or shaken pointers, tipped with the Q's that 
move about the Dial. Jack Falstaffe is certainly 
meant to convey a suggestion of the pointer or 
"staffe" as it falls around the Dial. 

Lest this be thought wholly grotesque, notice 
the use of Falstaffe as a Jack of the Clock in / 
Henry IV. Here Hotspur muses, at Q 318, H 6, 
Zeta, "If life did ride upon a Dial's point Still 
ending at the arrival of the hour." This is a good 
Zeta 12 reference, with its end and arrival. 

But on the second round of the Dial after this, 
Hotspur is dead, and Jack Falstaffe on the ground 
beside him at Q 331, H 7, ("Grace?") does that 
strange act in the play, takes the part of a dead 
man, and then "m<?j" up, as the Folio directions 
explain, taking Hotspur on his back as he rises, 
his "r/V being at Q 338, H 2, or Beta. At 
Q 342, H 6 comes, "If I be not Falstaffe, then am 
I a Jack.'' Here, in the play Hotspur has his wish, 
and does end his life riding on the Dial's point, 
at the beginning and ending of the Hour 12-1. 
The incident has slight meaning except on the Dial. 

64 



TELLING THE TIME 

Much the same sort of proof trick is done with 
Falstaffe in Merry Wives. Here at Q 358, H 10, 
the Hour of Fire, it is planned to test Jack Fal- 
staffe's real character and see what that is like. 
This is to be done by the test of "trial fire" ap- 
phed to his finger ends, to see if they will burn. 
The Queen accordingly asks her test question, 
"Come, will this wood take fire?'' and is exactly at 
Hour 10, the place of the Fire on the Dial. It is 
clear that Jack Falstaffe's finger is burnt by the 
fire on the Dial, for he suddenly exclaims, "Oh, 
Oh, Oh," at the instant. Then follows the Song, 
"Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about ^ 
Till Candles, and Star-light, and Moon-Shine be 
out. 

When in As You Like It the fair Rosalind im- 
agines a "boar-spear" in her hand, she is at the 
top of the Dial, Q 61, H i, ("far?"). This is also 
linked with the Bacon Blazon, since the boar was 
a "much honored sign" of Bacon's family. The 
boar is brought many times to tally with the 
Bacon letters on the Dial. The hint may be that 
the Spear that is so "shaken" is the "Boar" or 
Bacon Spear; certainly the Dial placements 
would indicate this meaning. 

Many time references in the plays come at mid- 
night and are set on the Dial point 12-1. Refer- 
ences to noon come at the same place. From the 
large number of correctly tallied time references 
in the text only a few, chosen to show the various 
types of reference, can be given in this space. 

5 65 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

The words, *'Now Phaeton hath tumbled from 
his car And made an Evening at the Noontide 
Prick", in J Henry VI, are set at 12-1, by Q 49, 
H I, ("cause?"). The Speech count is at point 
25, the evening hour of nine o'clock, and makes 
the time even closer as a tally. 

"Let's mock the midnight Bell" is said at Speech 
point 12, in Antony and Cleopatra, an example of 
many puns between the Hour 12 and point 12. 
In the same play, at Speech point 2^, it is said, 
"Brother, good night, tomorrow is the day." 

In Measure J or Measure, at Q 252, H 12, 
("agreed?") it is said, "Tis now dead mid- 
night." 

The Bishop enters with his Torch-boy at vj 206, 
H 2, ("away?") in Henry VIII, and observes, 
"It's one oclock Boy, is't not," and the lad agrees, 
"It is strook." Each speaks at i on his Personal 
count. 

Dinner references tallied at the top of the clock 
are common. In Merry Wives, when Mistress 
Page says so cheerily to her husband as they 
chance to meet, "You'll come to dinner, George?" 
she is at Q 103, H 7, but by the Speech count she 
asks him at quite the fortunate moment, being at 
exactly noon, or point i. 

Perhaps it is no more droll than many other 
ideas in the play to wonder if, when Falstaffe says, 
in the same Dial round, and at point 34, "Why 
then, the world's mine Oyster," he may have been 
reminded of oysters by the recent mention of din- 



TELLING THE TIME 

ner at the same Hour. Many references to food 
occur at the imaginary dinner table on the Dial. 

The question, "Is it near dinner time?" in Two 
Gentlemen is Q 36, H 12. Puns between 6 of the 
compass time at Gamma, and 3 of the clock at 
Gamma are many. In the same play, "She that 
you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?" is Q 62^ 
H 3. Another trick of the same sort is in locating 
a dinner hour at Upsilon, the hour of point 24, 
and often used as in harmony with point 12 and 
1 2-1 of the Hours. Ship's time, marked by the 
ringing of bells, is often tallied accurately with the 
time of the Dial, and the Dog Watch is often 
noted at Upsilon, as if that Hour stood for *'Eight 
Bells." Upsilon is named as the place of Water, 
so the Bells are appropriately heard here. 

The first scene in Comedy of Errors will show in 
almost any good edition the dinner proofs of the 
Speech and Personal counts. Q 4, H 4, ("I 
pray?") sets Wednesday on the right day of the 
Dial week. 

The overlapping and punning with the Speech 
count is common in the lighter comedies, but 
comparatively seldom done in the tragedies, or 
at least not to so fine a point. The early comedies 
in the Folio seem meant to play with the cipher 
and to revel in all its variety. The point verifica- 
tions are even more difficult to doubt than those of 
the Hours, for the chance of striking right with a 
point tally is only one in thirty-six, and the 
doubling at Alpha-Omega also affects it. 

67 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

An example of straight Hour count tallying at 
five o'clock is found in the same play and seems 
to be inserted as if to reassure the confused mind 
of a decipherer. At Q 185, H 5, ("answer not?") 
the correct statement is made, "By this I think 
the Dial points at five." The Dial of Bacon does 
truly point at five of the clock. 

"To carve out Dials quaintly, point by point," 
is said at Speech point 34, the Bacon line, in 
J Henry VI. 

In AWs Well, at Q 93, H 9 ("he?") Lafew 
makes a derisive apology to Bertram for not liking 
his friend. "Then my Dial goes not true," he 
explains satirically, "I took your Lark for a 
Bunting." But he is well aware that the Dial is 
set right by Bacon's and does go true; for at Phi, 
Hour 9, the Lark is seen spelled entirely within 
Phi. The Speech point strikes 16, in Zeta, at 
which Bunting is rather plainly spelled. 

"Is it four oclock?" is Q 7, H 7, in Henry V. 
The Speech point is at 7, thus marking the time 
4:30. The answer comes promptly, "It is." 

"What oclock, think you?" in Measure for 
Measure, is at Speech point 31, in Hour 11. At 
point 32, carrying compass time 11:15, the reply 
is, "Eleven, sir." At point '^'^^ now directly noon, 
the invitation is given, "I pray you come to din- 
ner with me." 

"What is't oclock?" — "t'is stricken eight," in 
Julius Caesar, is at Q 130, H 10, otherwise 8:15 on 
the Dial. By Speech count it marks point i on 



TELLING THE TIME 

the eighth round of counts, a veritable eighth 
hour, just "stricken." 

A more serious treatment of the dinner-puns 
is in Richard III. At Q 183, H 3, "What, go you 
toward the Tower?" the one who goes all unwit- 
tingly to his death, Hastings, makes reply, "I stay 
dinner there." This is at the Hour 3, which also 
carries compass time 6 o'clock. Buckingham, 
knowing the fate in store for the other man, says 
subtly, "And Supper too, altho thou knowst it 
not." Hastings' Personal count is at i,2'> noon. 

An excellent example of the way in which time 
references are sometimes placed forward, and then 
tallied at the time of their actual occurrence at 
the expected place on the Dial, is given in Taming 
of the Shrew. Such forward tallyings I have called 
"advance notices," whether they concern time, 
compass point or Hour allusions. 

In Taming, Petruchio tells his Kate that they 
will be married on Sunday. It is a fair question, 
"Are Kate and Petruchio married on Sunday?" 

The first day of the week on the Dial is Alpha. 
The day set, Sunday, has practically arrived, the 
bridal party is awaiting Petruchio, and the groom 
does not appear. "Is he come?" sets the time at 
1 2-1, with the Q 132, and the answer is, "Why no 
sir." At Q 133, H i, ("what then?") it is said, 
"He is coming." At Q 134, H 2, it is asked, 
"When will he be here?" The enigmatical answer 
is, "When he stands where I am, and sees you 
there." At Q 139, H 7, Petruchio returns, de- 

69 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

manding, "Come, where be these gallants?" At 
Q 141, H 9, he exclaims, "But where is Kate?" 
and at Q 144, H 12, at Omega the place of "Me- 
teors," he demands in some dudgeon why they 
stare at him as if they saw "Some Comet, or un- 
usual prodigy?" Here he is told that it is his wed- 
ding day and asked the Q 145, H i ("unlike your- 
self?") that sets the count exactly on Alpha. When 
he is asked why he comes in his motley garb, so 
unlike himself and late for the wedding, Petru- 
chio replies with dignity that he comes to keep his 
promise: "SufRceth I am come to keep my word." 
And the day is Sunday. 

But the Speech count ably seconds the Hour 
count in vivifying the story, for it retains the 
speakers at Hour Alpha for a longer period than 
the Hour count, which sets the wedding itself at 
the place of the East Altar, can do. Both Alpha 
and Gamma claim certain religious observances, 
and Gamma, as will be seen in the chapter on 
compass points, is the place of sunrise and the 
altar whose priest faces the East, as in a cathedral. 
In Richard II the statement, "I'll make a voyage 
to the Holy-land, To wash this blood off from my 
guilty hand" is set at Q 231, H 3, the East. By 
the Hour count Gremio is at Delta when he is 
asked if he has just come from church and pro- 
ceeds to give his story of the lively wedding. 

The Speech count, with its more flexible habit 
and accurate shading, connects with the Hour 
count in setting Petruchio's speech, "I am come 

70 



TELLING THE TIME 

to keep my word," at Alpha, point 33, the height 
of the Dial. Here, too, he says, "But what a fool 
am I to chat with you, When I should bid good 
morrow to my Bride?" This is a fine example of 
the playing back and forth of the two counts, 
when they are being used with a literary intent. 
For Petruchio's question does not lead him wholly 
away from the Sunday placement, and he is able 
to ask it freely because of the stability of the 
Speech count, which here at Alpha-Omega allows 
seven speeches at the top of the clock. 

On the other hand, there are many times when 
a whole scene needs to be kept in a certain mood, 
and when the placement at such a group as 
Epsilon is controlled by one Q alone, although the 
Speech count should bring in a whole horde of 
conspirators each with his word to contribute. 
The plays could hardly have been plays with 
either count alone, but the two serve to give a 
running comment that is often both enlivening 
and illuminating. Short questions, such as 
** What's the news.?" "How now?" "What's the 
time?" "Whence come you?" are often thrown 
in to carry the action forward to a desired place 
without affecting the nature or mood of the speech 
between the two stopping places, but to reserve 
the change for some particular Hour group farther 
along the Dial. These are frequent at the top 
of the Dial, where short speeches between new- 
comers swing the count rapidly along across the 
triple group. 

71 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Here, too, by the Speech count tally, Petruchio 
is able to say that he must now "seal his title with 
a lovely kiss." For the Kiss, spelled Kysse, is to 
be seen at points 31, 23j ^^d is linked so closely 
with the word Keys that it seems to be used with 
almost as distinct a meaning as a cipher clue. A 
long list of kisses — especially the remembered 
kisses — are given here at Psi-Alpha. 

It is here again that Petruchio, at the end of 
the play, with his troubles over, exclaims to his 
wife, "Come on, and kiss me Kate." (Q 275, 
Hi I, "parts?"). 

It is here that, in Merchant^ Portia stands when 
Bassanio turns to greet her with a loving kiss. 
And, lest one forget the fun possible at this place, 
it is here also that Titania, in the gaiety of Mid- 
summer madness, bestows upon the gentle Ass her 
fairy kiss. 

Other words, not uncommon in themselves and 
perhaps seeming absurd for cipher use, are Ready, 
Lady, Mayd, May, My, Myself, Sea, Gates, Mad, 
Yea, Yes, and Nay, all spelled in one or two lines 
at the top of the Dial, and used with evident in- 
tent, over and over, to call attention to this group 
if possible. The point lies in their being spelled 
in the briefest possible space. 

An instance of another day-of-the-week tally 
is when Hamlet, at Q 158, H 2, ("Lord?") changes 
his speech swiftly to observe, "You say right, sir: 
for a Monday morning 'twas so indeed." Since 

72 



TELLING THE TIME 

Beta is the second group on the Dial, Hamlet is 
following his Bacon calendar with entire sanity. 

Francis Bacon has written in one of his notes on 
cipher the opinion that to be worth anything a 
cipher should be strictly accurate. He surely 
spoke of what he knew about by experience. 

Many times the Folio directions insert '^Clock 
strikes'' in the text, and such places will be found 
to tally on the Dial. In Julius Caesar, at Q loi, 
H 5 ("only Caesar?") are the words, "For he will 
live, and laugh at this hereafter." The Folio 
directions have ''Clock strikes.'' Brutus says, 
"Peace, count the Clock." He is answered, "The 
Clock hath stricken three." Three o'clock is at 
Gamma, Hour 3. At the point after Gamma 
comes this statement, ''Clock strikes." The com- 
mand to "count the clock" is at Speech point 11, 
just after the striking has begun, and at point 12, 
again, is the pun between the two 12's or striking 
points of the hour, for the answer comes, correct 
in time, "The Clock hath stricken three." Yes, 
and it is the clock of Francis Bacon, and of Bacon 
only. 

The Ides of March, in Julius Caesar, come at the 
third Hour, Gamma, the suitable group for March. 
At Q 27, H 3, C'calls on me?") the Soothsayer 
cries, "Beware the Ides of March." At Epsilon, 
the place of treachery, the warning is given for 
the third time. The scene in the Orchard, where 
Brutus struggles with his conscience, opens at 

73 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Zeta, and at Q 84, H 12, Brutus asks his lad, 
"Is not tomorrow. Boy, the first of March?" 
and bids him look in the calendar. Here at 
Omega, the place of Meteors, Brutus comments 
on the "exhalations, whizzing through the air." 
Exactly at Q 87, H 3, ("strike?") the boy Lucius 
returns and says, "Sir, March is wasted fifteen 
days." 

The actual killing of Caesar is at the Broad 
Gate, Q 154, H 10, with the question, "£/ /«, 
Brute?'' This is the place for the dead and the 
conspirators. But Caesar himself is left at the 
Ides of March once more by the accuracy of the 
Speech count, at point 7, the first line in Gamma, 
March. Brutus dies at Q 291, H 3, in March, 
with these words, "Caesar, now be still." 



74 



CHAPTER V. 
THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

That sagacious remark, half statement, yet put 
in question form as if to rouse curiosity — "He 
knows the Game; how true he keeps the wind?" 
was not only the comment on a diplomatic twist 
in conversation, at point 36 in j Henry VI^ but 
serves as a hint to the decipherer. Does the 
writer of the plays of Shakespeare "know the 
Game?" Does he show that he does by "keeping 
the wind" with accuracy, tallying the text refer- 
ences to compass points with the same points in 
their order on the Dial? The answer is "Yes." 

In all there are about one hundred and seventy 
references to points of the compass in the Folio, 
a large number for a volume of thirty-six plays. 
Such compounds as "South-north" and "North, 
North-east and by East" might be called either 
one or two distinct points when counting the ac- 
tual number of times that points are named, but 
logically and sensibly they tally on the Dial as 
the reader might infer them to do. 

As if to guard against any mistake in the use 
of compass points and their names. Lord Bacon 
gave the full list of compass points in his History 
of the Winds ^ thus "boxing the compass" for future 

75 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

decipherers. The points have not varied in these 
three hundred years. 

It was of the compass, along with gunpowder 
and printing, that Bacon wrote, "These three 
have changed the appearance and state of the 
whole world ... so that no empire, sect, or 
star, appears to have exercised greater influence 
on human affairs than these mechanical discov- 
eries." He may have felt a real satisfaction in 
joining his own cipher to the compass he so greatly 
admired, and in fitting his text references with 
delicate precision and play of fancy around and 
around the Dial form. He paid thus a certain 
tribute to the compass. 

The first mention of a compass point in the 
Folio is in Tempest at Q 36, H 12, ("free thee?") 
"To run upon the sharp wind of the North." 
Hour 12 sets the word "North" at the top of the 
Dial, and at North. The first point of Omega, 
12, is also point 2 on the Dial, Omega being in- 
visible behind Alpha. The corresponding second 
point on the other half of the Dial, starting from 
point 19, in Tau, where the left-hand side of the 
Dial begins, is point 20. The connection between 
Tau and Alpha is often stressed. Here the Speech 
point touches 20, and thus notes what would be 
a point opposite North on the Dial, or the same 
point if the Dial cipher had taken its start from 
Tau, which was a possibility. 

The second mention of "North" is in Two Gen- 
tlemen of Verona, Q 179, H 11, ("banished?"), 

76 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

where Valentine sends his boy the message to 
meet him "at the North-Gate." The boy is given 
the message, and takes the count squarely upon 
the point North by his Question, "For me?", 
192, Hour 12. This question has advanced the 
Speech count to point 23, due North on the Dial, 
which is indeed the place where his master stays 
for him. 

"It standeth North North-east and by East 
from the West corner," in Love's Labor's Lost^ is 
written down in a curious letter that begins at 
Q 13, H I, ("attention?"), and Speech count 23, 
or West South West. Hour i itself carries North, 
North by East, and North North-east points. 
This letter is interrupted several times in the 
reading, and the Speech count has advanced to 
point 34 when the phrase "North North-east and 
by East" is reached. Point 34 will be seen to be 
on the Dial "North by East." The letter ends, 
counting the Speech point straight along, at what 
would be point 38, which strikes North East by 
East on the Dial, a fact that might easily serve 
as a hint. But, by cipher counting on the actual 
Dial, the Speech count invariably proceeds to 
the last line of Omega and then "castles" back 
and starts afresh at Alpha i, the saving trick- 
play of the cipher. When the Speech count does 
this as usual, the count arrives a second time at 
point 34, or 2, and North by East. The Speech 
count in the letter therefore covers the points 
from the West Corner to North, North by East, 

77 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

and the end of the letter has touched on cipher 
count points North North-east and North-east by 
North. 

Again, in Lovers Labor's Lost, the reference to 
"By East, West, North, and South I spread my 
conquering might" is at Speech count point 17, 
due South. The peculiar comment of the text on 
this speech, "Your nose says no, you are not. For 
it stands too right," is a not infrequent Dial pun 
on the two No's made at Zeta, where the NO 
of points 17, 16, seen, like "PO" on the outer rim 
of the Dial, and the NO made at points 16, 15, 
are in fact "Two" to the "right" of due South, 
point 17. 

When the Braggart in Love's Labor's Lost de- 
claims "By the North-pole I do challenge thee," 
he speaks at Q 278, H 2, at Northern points in 
Beta, but not at the Pole itself. The Speech point 
is 29, also in Chi. The Clown retorts, "I will not 
fight with a pole like a Northern man," and is at 
the same Chi placement but at Speech point 30, 
North West by North. As it is expected, the 
Braggart later refuses to fight, and it is precisely 
at the North Pole itself that he answers the posi- 
tive statement of his friends to the effect that he 
"may not deny" the challenge of the other man, by 
declaring, "I both may.^ and will." The North 
Pole is thus a witness to his downfall, a proper 
braggart's end. 

Such throwings-forward of the verification, like 
prophecies, or as I call them, "advance notices," 

78 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

are frequent, and show an especial enjoyment on 
the part of the cipherist. As here, they often fur- 
nish satirical comment on a situation. 

"The fairest creature Northward born" in 
Merchant of Venice is said at Q 31, H 7, Tau, and 
at Speech count "T^^i^ or point North North-east. 
The accuracy of the following tallies may be easily 
verified on the Dial. "Sailed into the North of 
my lady's opinion," Twelfth Nighty is at Hour 2, 
Q 158. "I from the North" is at Q 46, H 10, and 
Speech count 3, in King John. "From North to 
South," at Q 46, H 10, is at Speech count 5, in 
King John. "Nor entreat the North" in King 
John is at Speech count 28. "Part us ... I 
towards the North" is at Speech count 19 in 
Richard II. But the actual parting is at Speech 
count 29, a few inches later on the page, and going 
North on the Dial. The next sight of Richard in 
the play is exactly at the North, when he enters 
at Q 216, H 12, with his long soliloquoy, "I have 
been studying how to compare," etc. "Unwel- 
come news came from the North" is at Q i, Hi, 
/ Henry IV. 

The "North gate" is at Speech count 5 in / 
Henry VI\ "The Percies of the North" are at 
Speech count 6; "Substitutes under the lordly 
Monarch of the North" is said at Speech count 
36, and Q 210. H 6, Zeta, may serve to stress the 
substitute 12 under the Omega 12. 

"Berwick in the North" is Speech count 2, in 
2 Henry VI. "The Horsemen of the North" are 

79 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

referred to at Q i, H i, and Speech point 2, in 
j> Henry VI. "Towards the North" is Q 171, H 3, 
and Speech point 8, in Richard III. "The best 
breed of the North" is at Speech point i and H 8, 
Q SG ("Katherine"?) in Henry VIII. "Up higher 
toward the North" is Q 96, H 12, ("here"?) 
and the Speech point is 30, in Julius Caesar. 

"As liberal as the North" is at point 2 in 
Othello. "The tyrannous breathing of the North" 
is Q 26, H 2 ("all?") in Cymbeline. "The Northern 
blasts twice o'er" come at Q 205, H i ("gone?"), 
due North, and "twice o'er" is suggested by the 
second verification the Speech count gives at 
point 5, in Winter's Tale. 

"Northern castles yielded up" and "Southern 
Gentlemen in arms" in Richard II are marked by 
Speech point 26, the first Northern point up from 
the South, and by the Q 102 and Hour 6 
("power?"). "The Northern Lords" in 3 Henry 
VI are at Speech point 5, while the "Northern 
Earls and Lords" in the same play are at Speech 
point 32. The added "Earls" may be seen spelled 
in two lines at 32, 1^1,. "Threw many a North- 
ward look" in 2 Henry IV is at Q 142, H 10 
("Bull?"). 

The "clear-stories toward the South-north" in 
Twelfth Night are at Q 222, H 6 ("dark?"), and 
the Speech count touches the last point of the 
compass round at 32. "From East, West, North 
and South" in Winter's Tale is the companion ref- 
erence to "By East," etc., in Love's Labor's Losty 

80 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

for here the East and West diameter of the Dial 
is stressed, with Q 40, H 4 ("him?") and Speech 
point 27, in Phi. 

"The North-East wind" that grew "bitterly" 
against their faces in Richard II is at Q 26, H 2 
("shed?"). 

When it is said in / Henry IV, "I am not yet of 
Percy's mind, that Hotspur of the North," the 
Q 113, H 5 and Speech point 14 unite at Epsilon, 
but it surely is "not yet" anywhere near the 
North. Much later in the play, but nevertheless 
the very next compass reference in it, at Q 169, 
H I, comes a mention of "the same mad fellow of 
the North, Percy." 

In 2 Henry IV, at Q 303, H 3, and Speech point 
27, three of the points in the text, "East, West, 
North, South, or like a School broke out," are 
tallied, point 27 being West North West, and H 3 
the East. 

The references to East, West, and South points 
are as carefully developed as are those to the 
North, but only the briefest mention can be made 
here of the most interesting. 

Point 1 2-1 is used as the instant of change 
between the old and the new day, and point 2, 
North by East, is the first sign of the breaking 
day. It is also the line carrying the F and B of 
a Bacon signature. 

*'The gentle day Before the wheels of Phoebus, 
round about Dapples the drowsy East with spots 
of gray" is in Much /I do at Q 264, Hour 12, 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

("Leonato?") and this first line of Hour 12, 
Omega, is also point 2 of the visible Alpha, or the 
first East placement of dawning. 

"Even till the Eastern gate all fiery red", in 
Midsummer, is Q 134, H 2, the hour containing 
the sunrise time of 3:45 at point 6. 

"Another day break in the East" is in King 
John, at Q 207, H 3, again the sunrise hour. 

"At the first opening of the gorgeous East" is 
in Love's Labor's Lost, Speech point 6 (Sunrise, 

3:45)- 

"The eye of heaven . . . fires the proud tops 

of the Eastern Pines . . . see us rising in our 

Throne . . . the East" is in Richard II at 

Speech point 6. "The fiery Portal of the East" 

is Q 108, H 12, in Richard II, and once more at 

Speech point 6, the sunrise point. 

"The silent hours steal on. And flaky darkness 
breaks within the East" is not less beautiful be- 
cause the breaking day is set on the Dial at 
Speech point 36, or the "invisible Omega," 4, 
with its early morning hour of 2:15. This is in 
Richard III. 

"He should have braved the East an hour ago," 
also in Richard III, is at Speech point 3. 

"An hour before the worshipped Sun Peered 
forth the golden window of the East" is in Romeo 
and Juliet, Q 1 5 and Hour 3, the hour of the East. 
This is also Speech point 19, or South South-west. 
The text continues, "The grove of sycamores That 
Westward rooteth from this city side", and this 

82 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

agrees with the point 19. Again, at the same Q 
and Hour, H 3, it is written,"So soon as the all- 
cheering Sun Should in the farthest East begin 
to draw The shady curtains from Aurora's bed." 

"Here lies the East; doth not the day break 
here?" in Julius Caesar^ is Q 96, H 12, touching 
the eastern daybreak points again. 

At the same Q and Hour comes the statement, 
**the high East Stands as the Capitol directly 
here." ''High East" well describes the highest 
East point in Omega-Alpha. 

"The rich East to boot," in Macbeth^ comes 
again in Omega, at Speech point 36. This place- 
ment of the High East and the High Hill at the 
height of the Dial seems after study of the Folio 
to become a real locality, and is a picture in the 
memory. When Hamlet exclaims, "But look, the 
Morn in Russet mantle clad, Walkes o'er the dew 
of yon high Eastern hill" he speaks at Q 13, H i, 
and Speech point 2, a double verification of the 
"high East." 

"Oh Eastern Star!" in Antony and Cleopatra^ is 
set at Hour 3, Q 255 ("still?"). "We must lay 
his head to the East" is said at the burial of the 
beloved Fidele, and it is again at the sunrise 
hour, H 2, Q 254 in Cymbeline. 

Helena's anxious cry, "O long and tedious 
night. Abate thy hours, shine comforts from the 
East" is in Midsummer Night's Dream at Speech 
point 2^^ the early morning hour of 2:15. 

When, in As You Like It^ Rosalind reads her 

83 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

letter: "From the East to western Inde, no jewel 
is like Rosalind; Her worth being mounted on the 
wind Through all the world bears Rosalind", she 
is at Q no, H 2 ("damned?") and Speech point 
16, the first line in Zeta. "Ind" may be seen in 
Zeta, its added E being in line South South-west. 
It is also in Upsilon. The mate to this is given in 
Merry Wives of Windsor at Q 43, H 7, and Speech 
point 28, where, at these western points, it is said, 
"They shall be my east and west Indies." East 
is spelled within Tau. "The same Ind" is seen 
in Chi, the first line of which is 28. Rosalind is 
indeed "mounted on the wind" of the compass 
points, and travelling swiftly around the globe of 
the Dial. 

"Golden Progress in the East" is in / Henry IV 
at Speech point 9, or due East. 

The "East side" given in 2 Henry VI at Q 84, 
H 12 ("Lord?") is at Speech point 15, the east 
side of the Dial and of the grove at Zeta. At 
point 18 the matter is questioned, "Are ye ad- 
vised? The East side of the grove, Cardinal, 
I am with you." Point 18 is one of the "Cardinal 
winds" described by Bacon, and this is perhaps a 
pun on that point. At his words, "On the East 
side," the Cardinal is at his Personal count on 
point 12, and Gloster is at his own point 12 when 
he says, "I am with you" at Q 86, H 2. 

When Queen Hecuba and Helen go in the early 
morning "up to the Eastern Tower," in Troilus 
and Cressida, it is at Speech point 6, the sunrise 

84 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

hour. In the same speech it is remarked that 
Hector had already gone to the field "before the 
Sun rose". 



The sunset points are almost as clearly defined as 
the sunrise ones. "The Sun of heaven 
was loth to set; But stayed, and made the Western 
Welkin blush" in King John is Speech point 29. 

"I see thy Glory, like a shooting Star, Fall to 
the base Earth, from the Firmament; Thy Sun 
sets weeping in the lowly West," is at Q 78, H 6 
in Richard II y the Speech point being 30. Zeta 
has the lowest western point, and point 30 is 
close to the place of meteors and celestial bodies, 
at Psi. Compare with this the words in the 
Induction to 2 Henry IV: "I, from the Orient 
to the drooping West, Making the winds my 
Post-horse." The Induction, spoken by Ru- 
mor, thus prophesies truly, for she takes the 
Q count through Hour 5 and at 5 and 6 the 
actual play opens in the first speech, the "droop- 
ing West," or end of Rumor's progress, indicating 
the west point in Zeta. 

"The West yet glimmers with some streaks of 
day" in Macbeth is at Q 117, Hour 9 ("us.''"), 
due West: but the Speech reference at point 36 
also sets the "streaks of day" in the favorite 
East place. 

"Star that's Westward from the Pole" is Speech 
point 28 in Hamlet. 

85 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

"Go with her to the West end of the wood" in 
Two Gentlemen is at Q 270, H 6 ("her?"). 

"The Western side is with a Vineyard backed" 
is in Measure for Measure at Speech point 22. 

The famihar ejaculation "Westward Ho!" has 
a Dial significance. Olivia, in Twelfth Night, 
begins her speech to Viola at Q 153, H 9, or due 
West, ("to be proud?"). At her next question 
("than the Wolf?") she reaches Q 154, H 10 
and Speech point 2^. This is also the last point 
in Omega, and the moment when the clock should 
strike the new hour, between Omega and Alpha. 
A particularly clever cipher-trick here is the actual 
striking of that invisible clock, as it is set in the 
directions of the Folio text, "Clock strikes" 
Olivia notes it. "The clock upbraids me with the 
waste of time." That clock is the cipher Dial. 
Olivia now says to Viola, "There lies your way, 
due West." On the Dial this is strictly fact. 
Olivia, at her next speech, must make the move 
going back to Alpha point i, as is usual with the 
Speech count after 36 is touched. The direction 
of this movement on the Dial is given to Viola 
with accuracy as "due West." 

Viola makes the indicated move, exclaiming 
"Then Westward Ho!" and with the words is 
back by the Speech count at point i. The swift 
tossing to and fro of Alpha references between the 
two girls is another Dial hint — "You are not 
what you are," "I am not what I am," "would it 

86 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

be better than I am," and the rest are excellent 
cases of "Being and Not Being." 

"I am only mad North, North-West, when the 
wind is Southerly I know a Hawk from a Hand- 
saw" is Q 158, H 2 and Speech point 12, or 
Southerly, in Hamlet. H 2, Beta, has the point 
36 of invisible Omega as its first line. Hamlet, 
rather like Viola, seems to indicate the western 
movement between 2^ ^i^d i of the Speech count. 
But notice that the word MAD is not an easy 
word to find spelled on the Dial, the M and D 
being usually four lines apart. At the top of the 
Dial at points 32, 23i it is seen spelled in two lines. 
This is a Dial spelling frequently used as a veri- 
fication. Hamlet so uses it, giving the point 
North, and the point West of it, as being the place 
where he was "mad". He is not, in this sense of a 
Dial pun, "mad" at Beta, nor at Delta, with its 
point 12, Southerly. So far as the Dial can 
explain Hamlet's mental condition, it shows him 
to be wholly sane. 

Now the same trick is done in Twelfth Nighty 
where Malvolio, in his imprisonment, protests 
that he is "not mad." The compass reference is 
to the "clear-stories South-north" and the Q 222, 
H 6, South. By the Speech count Malvolio is at 
point 32, that point at which "mad" is partly 
spelled. At points 1,3 ^^^ 3S Malvolio renews his 
claim to be thought "not mad", and at last 
demands, at 3^^ "make the trial of it by any 

87 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

constant question^ Questions follow quickly, 
at Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, and there is no "mad" 
to be seen. Malvolio knew that. At Psi, the 
Clown speaks the name, "M. Malvolio.'" 

At Hour lo, where the Speech count stood when 
Malvolio demanded the Question trial, the Clown 
scores by asking how Malvolio happened to lose 
his "five wits," and again Malvolio denies his 
loss of them and the argument begins once more. 
The Speech count now makes haste to overtake 
the Hour count and while the Hour is still at 12, 
Omega, Malvolio at point 1,3 declares that he is 
not mad, and is asked by the Clown if he is only 
"counterfeiting." At point 1,^ the Clown says 
"I am gone sir, and anon sir, I'll be with you 
again: In a trice." Sebastian enters, with a 
long soliloquy on madness, at Speech point i, and 
observes that "this may be some error, but no 
madness" and that he is almost ready to "dis- 
trust" his "eyes." His own "eyes" do indeed tell 
him by the Dial that he is "mad" at point i. 

Now if one counts the parts or speeches said by 
Malvolio himself, beginning at i on the Dial with 
his first speech, although it is far along in the play 
itself, and going about the Dial on the same round 
of 2^ as do the Hour and Speech counts already 
used, it will be found that Malvolio is at the top 
of the Dial by this Personal count of his own 
part, exactly as he is by the Speech count, when 
he says "I am not mad." The same arrangement 
is seen in Hamlet, where by Hamlet's own Per- 

88 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

sonal count he is at point 4, the first line in Beta, 
at the time the Hour count also sets him at 
Beta. 

A notable "instance" is in Julius Caesar^ 
where Caesar by his own Personal count is exactly 
at point I, the place of the North Star, when he 
says, "But / am constant as the Northern Star.'' 

In Two Gentlemen of Verona some one is ordered 
to take Silvia to "the West end of the wood" at 
Speech count 22. By Silvia's Personal count she 
is really at point 22 when she meets Valen- 
tine at the "West end." When King John 
says ''Our Thunder from the South'' he is by his 
own Personal count at point 18. In "Much Ado" 
Beatrice is by her own Personal count exactly at 
point I due North, when Benedick says satirically 
that she "would infect to the North Star." 

A form of advance notice, often puzzling till 
one knows the device, is given in Comedy of 
Errors at Q i. Hour i ("home?"). Here the 
chance that the Merchant may, by the laws of 
the place, be executed "Ere the weary sun set in 
the West" appears to be off the count, for it is a 
right "Sun" reference at Alpha, but has no 
"VVest." Later, at Q 185, H 5, ("answer not.?"), 
it is said that "Anon" the Duke will come "this 
way" to the place of execution. The same 
speaker says, at the same Q, "By this I think the 
Dial points at five." It does — Epsilon, Hour 5. 
At Q 186, H 6 ("cause?") it is said, "See where 
they come; we will behold his death." Zeta 

89 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

contains the first western point, or the earliest 
sunrise hour. 

"That utmost corner of the West" in King 
John is at Q 31, H 7, and Speech point 29, govern- 
ing the western "corners" of North West and 
South West. "We from the West" in King 
John is at Hour 10. "West of this Forest" in 
2 Henry IV is at Speech point 20. "Kingdoms of 
the West" in 2 Henry VI are at Hour 10 and 
Speech point 23. "Whip you to the West" in 
Romeo and Juliet is at Speech point ^Z^ Hour 
Omega, perhaps another hint at the westward 
move from Omega to Alpha, since the Q is 180, 
H 12 ("Fray?"). 

A form of dating back a reference is given in 
Titus Andronicus. "He and his Lady both are at 
the Lodge, Upon the North side of this pleasant 
Chase. Tis not an hour since I left them there." 
This is Q 63, H 3 ("dead?"), and Speech point 
27, or W. N. W. The first point of Gamma is 
E. N. E., opposite, and the North side is well cov- 
ered here as are the South suburbs elsewhere. 
But the "hour since" places the hour back one, 
a common time trick, and the count is thus at 
Beta, higher north. 

In Midsummer the dainty reference to the 
"little Western flower" is at Q 28, H 4 ("stay?"). 
Speech point 4. Puck is sent to fetch this flower, 
and replies in the now famous words, "I'll put 
a girdle about the earth, in forty minutes." At 
Q 35, H II, Puck returns with the flower, the 

90 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

Speech point being in the west. A pretty trick 
is done on the Dial with that "forty minutes." 
On Oberon's personal count Puck is sent at 
point 8, and returns between lo and ii, Oberon 
having spoken once between. The interval on 
the Dial covers exactly forty points or minutes 
to the point where Oberon says, "Pray give it 
me," which marks the delivery of the flower. 
This gives at least one explanation of the "forty 
minutes" Puck chose as his time limit. 

South references are plentiful and good. 

"His Regiment lies half a mile at least South," 
is at Speech point 13, in Richard III. 

"A South-west blow on ye," is Q 44, H 8, 
("when?") in Ternpest. "Like foggy South" in 
As You Like It, is Q 185, H 5, ("sale-work.?") 
Epsilon, and Speech point 14, in Epsilon. "The 
South Suburbs" in Twelfth Night are at Q 164, 
H 8, ("Lodging?") and Speech point 12. "The 
Southern clouds" are at Speech point 20, in 
2 Henry VI. 

"The Sun looking with a Southward eye," in 
Winter's Tale, is at Q 267, H 3, ("Sir?") and 
Speech point 25, thus drawing a diameter across 
the Dial and separating the South half from the 
North half. 

A vivid Dial picture of the weather-vane itself 
is made in a reference in Romeo and 'Juliet at 
Q 57, H 9, ("yours?") "I talk of dreams . . . 
more inconstant than the wind who woos Even 
now the frozen bosom of the North, And now 

91 



BACON'S DIAL IN S HAKE SPEARE 

being angered, puffs away again, Turning his side 
toward the dew dropping South." The Speech 
point is at the North of the Dial, point 23- The 
Dial pointer thus behaves like a real vane, first 
pointing due North, and then turning back 
around the Dial toward Hour 9. When it points 
at hour 9 it does in Dial fact have its side turned 
toward the South, whose "dews" may be seen 
spelled not far below it. 

"The South to the Septentrion" is neatly 
illustrated by Q 65, H 5 ("insult?") in j Henry 
Fly and Speech point 3, which places the regions 
that have to do with the constellation of the 
Bear, Ursa Major, or in other words the Sep- 
tentrion, just at the North point that tallies with 
the Bacon Blazon of the Dipper, later shown. 

Another attempt to bring forward the two 
extremes of the Dial is in the text state- 
ment in J Henry Fly "Thou art deceived 'Tis 
not thy Southern power," (Q 15, H 3, "not.?"). 
Quite right; it is not; the Hour is 3, and the 
Speech count is i. No more perfect repudiation 
of the "Southern" half of the Dial could easily 
be made with two counts alone. 

"Diseases of the South" in Troilus and Cressida 
is at Speech point 17. "Contagion of the South" 
in Coriolanus is at Speech point 15, and "South 
the City mills" is at Speech point 23. "If it 
were at liberty, twould sure Southward," also in 
CoriolanuSy is Q 103, H 7 ("so?"), and point 23, 
a "sure Southward" tally. 

92 



THE POINTS OF THE COMPASS 

Cymbeline has interesting and somewhat in- 
tricate compass references. "South the chamber" 
is at Q 103, H 7 ("wearing?") and Speech point 2. 
"Chamber" locations are often at the top of the 
Dial. "From the Spungy South . . . this part 
of the West" is Q 270, H 6, ("them.?") and 
Speech point 25, which is due West. 

The last compass point references in the Folio, 
on the last column of the last page, are used in 
connection with a "vision accomplished," and 
are spoken by the Soothsayer who had warned the 
Roman general, Lucius, as to the future: "For the 
Roman Eagle From South to West on wing 
soaring aloft . . . should unite His favor 
with the Radiant Cymbeline, Which shines here 
in the West." This is Q 361, H i ("chance?"). 
At the time the Soothsayer had his vision, Cym- 
beline was by his Personal count at point 25, 
due West. The "vision" does in the cipher indi- 
cate the British victory. 

The Roman Eagle is represented sufficiently 
well by the Roman general, Lucius. The Personal 
count of that Roman general strikes at point 25, 
due West, exactly here, when the Soothsayer says 
that the Vision is "at this instant" accomplished. 

At once, after the Q 361, itself, comes the sen- 
tence, "But nor the Time, nor Place Will serve 
our long Interragatories.'* 



93 



CHAPTER VI 
THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

Alpha is the supreme height of the Diah For 
all great moments in the plays, the finest stress is 
at Alpha-Psi, or Alpha-Omega. It is "Beginning" 
— the new fresh day, the eternal hope, and the 
eternal righteousness. Even the brute Caliban 
finds himself once in the play at the height of 
Alpha, and for one moment we feel sympathy 
for him. 

At Q 145, H I ("afeard?"), in Tempest, CaUban 
says that on the Island there were "sometimes 
voices That if I then had waked after long sleep, 
Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming. 
The clouds methought would open." It is like a 
glimpse in dreams of one's better self. 

Alpha-Omega-Psi often are one, the Q's coming 
swiftly to complete the sense of things celestial 
at Psi, the Hour of Celestial Bodies, with the noble 
beginning, or the noble finality, of Hour 12-1. 
Here at Alpha-Omega Hamlet dies, and the text 
gives the Alpha-Omega significance, "Good night, 
sweet Prince, and flights of Angels sing thee to thy 
rest." 

The death of JuHet is at Alpha-Psi, that Ce- 
lestial land of lovers. 

Sometimes a name appears prominently at 

94 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

Alpha with apparent discordance. Thus it is that 
in Othello the wretch I ago speaks first from Alpha- 
Omega. He says, "Were I the Moore, I would 
not be lago," and "Heaven is my judge, not I 
for love and duty. But seeming so, for my peculiar 
end," "For when my outward action doth demon- 
strate The native Act, and figure of my heart 
In complement externe, tis not long after But I 
will wear my heart upon my sleeve For Daws 
to peck at. / am not what I am." 

lago is an actual and incontrovertible Dial- 
made name, found at Gamma in point 9, 
"I O U A G", and in Alpha-Omega twice, where 
Omega line 2 parallels Alpha line 3, giving the G 
that finishes lago. It is lago who says that the 
thought of a supposed injury to himself gnaws 
at him, and "nothing can, or shall content my 
Soul Till I am even with him." lago is found 
standing on the Dial at the line of continual in- 
debtedness — the "I-O-U" or "/ owe you" — line 
in Gamma. And this may have had something 
to do with the choice of his name or even the idea 
of his character. The Daws and the Peck at 
Omega-Beta have letters that touch the word 
lago — and his "peculiar end" may be a Dial pun 
on that "end — " Omega — that is responsible in a 
peculiar fashion for making his name at the top 
of the Dial, where he really does not belong "for 
love and duty," but merely to get his double 
name by means of Alpha-Omega as a Dial proof. 

One of the finest of all Alpha placements in the 

95 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Folio occurs in King Lear. In the first of the play, 
when Lear asks Cordelia, "But goes thy heart 
with this?" the Q is ii, H ii, and from the place 
of all that is spiritual and beautiful Cordelia 
answers the simple truth, "Ay my good Lord." 
Lear cries out "So young, and so untender?" 
taking the count to Omega, for him "the end" 
so far as his daughter is concerned. The Folio 
punctuation gives the very accent of the girl, as 
she echoes it, with the change in pause that bears 
the absolute change in meaning, — "So young my 
Lord, and true.'' 

Lear uses Alpha-Omega phrases now. "By the 
sacred radiance of the Sun^ The miseries of Hecat 
and the night: By all the operation of the Orbes. 
From whom we do exists and cease to be Here I 
disclaim all my Paternal care, . . . And as a 
stranger to my heart and me, Hold th^Qfrom this 
forever." It is indeed Omega. 

But at the last of the play, when Cordelia 
returns to her helpless and broken father, the 
great scene in which he tries to understand their 
meeting is once more brought around to the 
Alpha-Omega of the Dial. Cordelia's greeting 
as King Lear enters, carried in a chair, comes at 
Psi, II — the same place at which he, in all the 
pride of his kingship, had so misjudged her. 
She asks at this place of Celestial comforts — 
"How fares your Majesty?" giving him for his 
support the very title he cannot claim. And here, 
at the place of the Celestial spirits, the old King 

96 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

says to Cordelia, "You do me wrong to take me 
out o' th' grave, Thou art a Soul in bliss — " 

At Q 360, (H 12) Cordelia cries, "Sir do you 
know me?" And Lear reaches the Alpha of 
Omega by his groping answer, "You are a spirit 
I know, where did you die?" The concord between 
the Dial and the text can be no truer than here, 
in word and in feeling. 

For there is a harmony on the Dial, and a dis- 
cord. Psi and Alpha are in accord. Delta the 
place of eternal justice is alike in its spirit, and 
Upsilon is the Hour of melody, of music over the 
waters, of essential harmony, and it also accords 
with the two others. But Epsilon, Hour 5, 
strikes the note of fatahty, of settled evil, of hate 
and treasonous malice. Chi has to do not only 
with the candle burning in the hall of Portia, that 
little candle that threw its beams so far, but in 
other moods and other plays concerns the very 
devils of Dante's Hell; — it is the place of the 
choice of good and evil. There is in Bacon s 
working out of the Hour qualities a definite attempt 
to create a harmony on the Dialy and^ through the 
Dialy within the text of the plays^ a constructive 
harmony of composition. 

Bacon's own interest in the connection between 
literature and music may be shown by a few 
extracts from his Notes on Natural History^ 
which reveal better perhaps than any other of his 
acknowledged works the wide range of his ob- 
servation and interest, a content of mind from 

7 97 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

which the plays would naturally have sprung, and 
traces of a flexible and animated style beneath the 
dryness of the "note" form. 

In Dr. Rawley's preface to them — a preface 
written at Lord Bacon's wish before his death, 
though the work was not published till a year 
later — he says that although these '^Notes" may 
seem scattered, yet they will be found to have 
''a secret order" by one who "looketh attentively into 
them." This "secret order" shows some evidence 
of linking the notes with both the cipher and the 
plays, and this gives special weight to some of 
the theories expressed here about musical harmony. 

I quote from Spedding's Philosophical Works 
of Lord Bacon, Vol. 2, page 386, note 103: 
"The diapason or eighth in music is the sweetest 
concord, inasmuch as it is in eflfect an unison: 
as we see in lutes that are strung in the base 
strings with two strings, one an eighth above 
another, which makes but as one sound. And 
every eighth note in ascent (as from eight to 
fifteen to twenty-two, and so on in infinitum) 
are but scales of diapason. The cause is dark, 
and hath not been rendered by any; and there- 
fore would be better contemplated." 

It is no small literary achievement in itself to 
invest certain groups on a chart with broad yet 
distinct characteristics, both actual and symbolic. 
The art with which Bacon accomplished this on 
the Dial does suggest a principle beneath his work, 
and it was only after I had come to realize the 

98 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

harmony between the groups Psi-Delta-Upsilon 
that I began to search for the underlying principle, 
and to find many clues in both the text of the 
plays and in Bacon's other works. At first I 
thought it a result of the repetitions of ''twelves'' 
on the compass points, as a basis for jests. But 
the under harmony is so true and so vital that it 
must have had a definite intention. 

For on the Dial it will be seen that if Alpha- 
Omega is, as usual, counted like one external 
group, the eighth Hour is Upsilon, the fifteenth is 
Delta, and the twenty-second is Psi, or Psi- 
Alpha. The greater the play, the more marked 
this "unison" which is actually a literary unison. 
For the fact is that in the noblest moments of all 
the plays, the finest acts, the most sincere and 
unworldly speeches, the most warm and sweet 
and humanly kind things are made by the Q's to 
match identically and with unswerving faithful- 
ness the Hour groups Upsilon, Delta, Psi on the 
Dial. 

I believe that the deliberate, consistent use 
of these three groups in the rising scale of eighths 
was at the bottom of a system of dramatic con- 
struction which Francis Bacon was trying to 
evolve for himself, and perhaps for others, one 
which he did develop with increasing force and 
beauty as he wrote play after play, and which 
gives to his plays a large part of that stability, that 
sustained warmth and strength and sweetness, 
that steady harmony which we have felt in our 

99 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

subconscious minds. The extraordinary vivacity 
of his words, the endless play of his humor and his 
fancy, must have been encouraged by the un- 
ceasing letter and word suggestions from the 
Dial; but the under-rhythm to which the plays 
are always true is intentional, persistent, and in 
itself indicative of the mind that planned it. 

In Philosophical Works ^ Vol. II, p. 388, note 
113, Bacon set down that "There be in music 
certain figures or tropes; almost agreeing with the 
figures of rhetoric, and with the afiections of the 
mind and other senses. . , . The falling from a 
discord to a concord, which maketh great sweet- 
ness in music, hath an agreement with the af- 
fections, which are reintegrated to the better after 
some dislikes.'' 

At Epsilon, Hour of Discord, Othello's "This 
and this the greatest discords be that ere our hearts 
shall make" is really concord, while lago's 'T'll 
set down the pegs that make this Music" makes the 
discord. 

In note 108 he says of discords that "one is 
next above the unison, the other next under the 
diapason." Something akin to this is arranged 
on the Dial, where the restless and disturbing 
Chi 10 is set beside Psi, and above Upsilon; and 
where the utterly discordant Epsilon is just below 
the Hour Delta, so serene in its confidence, and 
in its faith in the ultimate justice. 

Bacon also wrote down: "The sliding from the 
close or cadence, hath an agreement with the 

100 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

figure in rhetoric which t\ity cdiWpraeter expectatuniy 
for there is a pleasure even in being deceived. 
The reports or fuges have an agreement with the 
figure in rhetoric of repetition and traduction. . . . 
The triplas, and changing of times, have an agree- 
ment with the changes of motions; as when 
galliard time and measure time are in the medley 
of one dance." 

The Q's themselves on the Dial sometimes tread 
a stately measure, and again trip lightly around 
the Dial from one hour to the same hour once 
more, a swift run of Questions serving to give life 
and humor to the text, and familiar to us in such 
passages as Rosalind's excited string of questions 
to Celia, after Orlando has been seen in the 
Forest: "What makes he here? Did he ask for 
me?" and so on round the Dial. What seem 
on the printed page to be merely long speeches, or 
several sober groups with no enlivening Questions 
at all, are in reality the arrests of motion on the 
Dial, either for the quality of restfulness in itself, 
or to hold the placement at a special group so 
long as the character of that group sustains the 
mood of the text. Sometimes the text follows the 
Dial with measured serenity, almost every Q 
tallying; again it dances merrily along, touching 
the Dial at every few Q's only; and again it stays 
long at one placement. This variety of move- 
ment seems to be calculated with nicety, and it 
conforms to the Dial moods and groups. 

Sometimes short rushing groups of questions 

lOI 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

are so managed as to reach a placement quickly 
for the second time so that the scene may again 
be at the right setting at an important moment. 
This is a distinct form of careful Dial verification 
and most satisfying to follow. The trick play of 
the triple group at the top of the Dial hastens the 
speed of the Q's, since several questions may be 
used here covering like qualities; and it also 
serves to foil the would-be decipherer, since one 
cannot fit any series of numbers to the plays 
by a straight count and carry them on around 
the Dial with results, unless the Alpha-Omega trick 
is understood. 

In Note III, (Spedding, Vol. II, p. 388) Bacon 
wrote, "The pleasing of color symboliseth with the 
pleasing of any single tone to the ear; but the 
pleasing of order doth symbolise with harmony. 
And therefore we see in garden-knots and frets of 
houses, and all equal and well-answering figures, 
(as globes, pyramids, cones, cylinders, &c. how 
they please). . . . And both these pleasures, 
that of the eye, and that of the ear, are but the 
effects of quality, good proportion, or correspond- 
ence: so that (out of question) equality and 
correspondence are the causes of harmony." 
(Note the phrases "well-answering" and "out of 
question.") Equality and Correspondence may 
be used as the two words suitable for the Dial, 
and conveying something of its constructive 
meaning for the text. 

There are hints that the ancient musical in- 
102 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

strument known as the "Recorder" is punned upon 
both in the "Notes" and the text as having some 
Hnk with the Dial, which itself records, or is a 
"Recorder", with the "face of time" lettered to the 
"last syllable". In Hamlet^ when Hamlet says, 
"O the Recorder", it is clearly a Dial pun, for it 
is set at Zeta, where the two P's (used in the 
"River Po") are seen and used for his "Pipe", a 
common pun. And Hamlet's speech is itself ap- 
propriate to the Dial, as a secret and unknown 
thing. He refers to "my lowest note" and "the 
top of my Compass y 



Beta, Hour 2. After Alpha on the Dial comes 
Hour 2, or Beta, "concerning Possible and 
Impossible." It sometimes stresses the text by 
giving a note of Impossibility, only apparent 
after the play is finished. It is often humorous. 
Beta is also used like the Greek chorus, and 
always admirably. 

In King Lear at Q 218, Hour 2, this is the 
question: "How in one house Should many 
people, under two commands Hold amity? 'Tis 
hard, almost impossible." 

Letter proofs here are frequent. In Tempest 
the rigmarole about "How came that Widow in.?" 
(meaning Dido) is Q 62, H 2, the whole string of 
jokes serving merely to verify Di-Do as belong- 
ing at places on the Dial. She is seen most 
clearly at the top of the Dial, because there are 
several D's bunched together, and WIDOW 

103 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

is spelled at Omega-Beta, using letters from 
lago's line to make a W of two V's, if one likes. 
The use of the V's as W does in fact often mark 
either a possible W in the proof, or else the group 
Delta, which is punned on as "the odd angle" or 
"triangle" group. 

A use of Beta to accent a doubtful matter, a 
sort of "Lady or the Tiger" bit of amusement, 
is often found; and such a case is in Midsummer 
at Q 2, H 2, where in quite a modern fashion, the 
pronouncement that the Rose-like girl would be 
happier unhappily married than she would if she 
lived and died in "single blessedness" is set at 
Beta. As the sympathies of the reader are wholly 
with the girl rather than with her pompous 
parent, it is a relief to find the author sharing 
one's own attitude, at Beta in the cipher. 



Gamma, Hour j, concerns "Much and Little, 
Rare and Ordinary", and that expresses it ex- 
actly. The other hours have distinct and urgent 
claims, but Gamma is a Httle of everything, 
"all things to all men", a source of variety and 
interest on the Dial, and a relief, undoubtedly, to 
the author of the play. 

It has however some positive traits. It is the 
hour of Morning, the "East Gate," the Gate of 
Sunrise, the altar even, by an association with the 
East end of a cathedral, as is evident in Cymbe- 
line when Fidele's fair head must be laid toward 
the East in her feigned repose of death at Gamma. 

104 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

At this Gate of Sunrise Jeanne d'Arc leaves the 
stage, the cipher being wholly kind toward her, 
and carrying out to the end the favorable treat- 
ment given to the Maid in the first portion of the 
play of/ Henry VI. Bacon's treatment of Jeanne 
in the cipher is a separate study, for which, like 
much else, there is no space here, but it simplifies 
the play. Jeanne's "Fiends" merely bring in a 
Bacon signature. 

Gamma is either six or three o'clock. It is a 
place often used for spelling verifications, as many 
short sentences may be made from the unusually 
good set of letters at this group, which almost 
parallels Alpha. For time proofs it is excellent. 
In Tempest^ toward the end, mention is made of 
the ship that "but two glasses since we gave out 
split", and the Dial time is correct. It was at 
Phi (Q 9, H 9, "cold?") in Tempest that the 
wreck occurred and that Prospero and Miranda 
stepped out to see it. Here, at Q i8i, H i ("the 
news?") put a pencil on Alpha on the Dial and 
slide it back two periods; you reach the exact 
Phi 9 at which the wreck occurred on the Dial 
two periods or "glasses" back. This and another 
time reference in Tempest have puzzled com- 
mentators. 

The other problem is solved by finding that 
Ariel is actually freed, as he was promised he 
should be, at "six o'clock"; for he is set free at the 
East Gate, Gamma 3, which carries the Compass 
time of six o'clock. The diameter between West 

105 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

and East, with its two sixes, is a source of puns 
and proofs. The Gamma group less concerns 
qualities than the facts of time, place, locality, 
direction. 

Delta, Hour 4, Delta, the first letter of the 
Greek word for Justice, has the characteristics 
"Durable and Transitory, Eternal and Momen- 
tary." It is a placement easy to follow, and it has 
to do with what is loyal, honest, hopeful, patriotic, 
humanly good, and above all, just. It is in 
harmony or in unison with Psi, although it is 
perhaps a slightly more masculine group. 

In Much Adoy Q 244, H 4, ("was fled?") oc- 
curs, "If Justice can not tame you, she shall 
nere weigh more reasons in her balance." 

When, in Lear, the reinstated Edgar says to the 
convicted villain, "The Gods are just," the other 
makes reply, "Thou hast spoken right, 'tis true. 
The wheel is come full circle, I am here." The 
Q is 388 ("on me?"), and the Hour is 4, or Delta, 
the place of Justice. It is a matter of interesting 
coincidence, at least, that the Q number equals 
32 revolutions of the compass points times the 
twelve revolutions of the clock hours — with four 
over that enable the count to strike directly on 
Delta, the place of Justice. 

The patriotic aspect of Delta is well illustrated 
by the famous passage in Henry V, Q 40, H 4 
("France?"), where King Henry, at a critical 
moment in the battle, calls out, "Once more unto 

106 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

the Breach, Dear friends, once more; Or close the 
wall up with our English dead: . . . Cry, 
God for Harry, England, and St. George." 



Epsiloriy Hour 5, comes as a discord after 
Delta. Epsilon is concerning what is "Natural 
and Monstrous" in the ungoverned instincts of 
the natural man. So, in Tempest, Q 131, H 11, 
surprise is expressed "that a Monster should be 
such a Natural.'*" This occurs at Speech point 13, 
the first point of Epsilon. Epsilon is also the place 
of fatalities, where the passions of evil work harm 
to the good, where the innocent victim suffers. It is 
the tragic Hour of the whole Dial, more cruel than 
Chi, where the candle-light and the torch-light are 
shown. At Epsilon wickedness is, as Bacon him- 
self used the phrase in a letter, "a sure mounter 
for the saddle." Evil thrives here, and is de- 
termined upon with ardor. The charge of 
treachery and conspiracy, if made here, carries a 
heavy weight of truth; but it is often so arranged 
that a man wrongfully accused of being a traitor 
is accused at another placement, the fact itself 
that he is not at Epsilon serving as a cipher 
comment to clear him beforehand of the guilt. 

The strongest single arraignment of a traitor 
ever made in the English language is at Epsilon. 
It is at Q 29, H 5 ("my finger?") in Henry V: 
"And other devils that suggest by treasons. Do 
botch and bungle up damnation With patches, 
colors, and with forms being fetched From glitter- 

107 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

ing semblances of piety. But he that tempered 
thee, bad thee stand up, Gave thee no instance 
why thou shouldst do treason. Unless to dub thee 
with the name of traitor. If that same Demon 
that hath gulled thee thus. Should with his Lyon- 
gate walk the whole world. He might return to 
vasty Tartar back. And tell the Legions I can 
never win A soul so easy as that Englishmans." 
The unison between Chi and Epsilon is shown by 
the reference to the "devils" at Chi, the place of 
"Tartar" and the Fire, while the Epsilon Gate 
shows a "Lyon" spelled on the Dial beside it. 
"Soul," "Gull," and "Easy" are also seen within 
Epsilon. 

It is at Epsilon in Tempest^ Q i6i, H 5 ("spir- 
its?") that Prospero says, "I had forgot that 
foul conspiracy of the beast Caliban and his con- 
federates against my life; the minute of their plot 
is almost come." Passion and anger are also at 
Epsilon, as where Prospero says, "I am vexed; 
my old brain is troubled." And it was here that 
Miranda explained to Ferdinand that she had 
never seen her father so angry before in her life. 

The idea of plot-making is frequently given at 
Epsilon. In Richard 11^ at Q 29, H 5, ("lies he?") 
Richard, hearing of his uncle's illness, says 
venomously, "Now put it (heaven) in his Phy- 
sicians mind To help him to his grave immedi- 
ately. . . . Come Gentlemen, let's all go 
visit him: Pray heaven we make haste, and come 
too late." 

108 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

In Romeo and Juliet^ when Romeo is recognised 
at the party at the Capulets' home, and the old 
feud revives with Tibalt's "Fetch me my Rapier" 
the Q is Gc^^ H 5 ("Knight?"). Fatahty in Romeo's 
life is found at Epsilon. Here Mercutio is slain 
by Tibalt while Romeo tries to stop the fight, and 
Romeo's good intentions are the cause of his 
unhappy fate; for Mercutio cries as he is dying, 
"Why the devil came you between us? I was 
hurt under your arm." (Q 173, H 5). After this 
there is no peace for Romeo and Juliet. Romeo 
dies at Epsilon, drinking his poison with, "Come 
bitter conduct, thou urtsavoury guide. Thou 
desperate Pilot." When Romeo asks the Friar, 
"And sayest thou yet that exile is not death?" it 
is an Epsilon speech (Q 209, H 5); and when 
Juliet exclaims, at hearing, as she supposes, of 
Romeo's death in the first of the play, "Can 
heaven be so envious?" she has, at Epsilon, 
again expressed the thought of fatality. 

When King Lear is turned out into the storm 
by his daughters, it is at Epsilon (Q 245, H 5) 
that he exclaims, "In such a night as this? . . . 
Your old kind Father, whose frank heart gave all?" 
On the second round of the Dial after this, once 
more at Epsilon, Gloucester exclaims, "What a 
night's this?" (Q 269, H 5); and then is given 
that haunting and mysterious Hne, "Childe 
Roland to the dark Tower came." The Gate of 
Epsilon is in very truth the Gate of the Dark 
Tower in all the plays of "Shakespeare"-Bacon. 

109 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

For the little Princes in the Tower there could 
be but one placement, Epsilon. In Richard III ^ 
at Q 236, H 5, ("King for this?") Tyrrel enters 
and announces the murder of the children, 
"The tyrannous and bloody act is done." The 
King, gloating over other evil, adds presently, 
"The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom, 
and Anne my wife hath bid this world good night." 

In the long account of the quarrel between the 
Dukes of Norfolk and Herford, in Richard II y the 
sympathies of the reader are meant to go with the 
good Duke of Norfolk, Mowbray. He is made to 
enter and answer to his name at Alpha, for he is an 
innocent, falsely accused man (Q 13, H i, "in 
Armes?"). Herford, the man of overleaping 
ambitions, is set at Epsilon when he answers to 
his name (Q 17, H 5, "a quarrell.^"). Each man 
declares that he comes to prove the other "a 
Traitor to my God, my King" and so on. But the 
Dial vindicates Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, from 
the charge. Mowbray, sent into exile, exclaims 
hexe at Epsilon, the Hour of Discord, that his 
tongue will be to him in a foreign land of no more 
use "Than an unstringed Viol, or a Harp, Or like 
the cunning Instrument cased up. Or being open, 
put into his hands That knows no touch to tune 
the harmony." 

It is at Epsilon, (Q 401, H 5, "the Office?"), at 
this place of things monstrous and unbelievable, 
that King Lear enters with the dead body of his 
daughter Cordelia in his arms. 

no 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

In King John^ the plot to kill young Arthur is 
set at Epsilon, (Q loi, H 5, "withal?"). The 
actual death of Arthur is at Epsilon, (Q 161, H 5, 
"live?"). Before this, at Q 113, H 5 ("do it?"), 
at Epsilon, Arthur's almost distracted mother, 
Constance, tells the Cardinal of all her fear. 
Here she makes that piteous wail for her child, 
"Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me." 

Yet Constance reveals her grain of faith also, 
"And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say 
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven. 
If that be true, I shall see my boy again." She 
is at point 2,3- This is at the supreme height of 
the Dial, Alpha, by the Speech count, and is a 
truthful Dial prophecy. When Arthur takes the 
desperate chance for freedom, and leaps to his 
death, he is also at the height of the Dial, at 
point 2)^. The boy is reunited thus in spirit with 
his mother. Arthur's cry as he leaps is an Alpha 
reference, "As good to die and go; as die and 
stay . . . heaven take my soul, and England 
keep my bones." 

Zeta^ Hour 5, concerns "Natural and Artificial." 
It is an opposite, cross-Dial group from Alpha- 
Omega, and is used often as a place where things 
begun at the top of the clock may be seen at the 
bottom of it as if at the identical hour. It con- 
cerns ghosts and apparitions, being the other 
midnight hour. It is also, like Gamma, a place 

III 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

where the emotional stress is somewhat arrested, 
and a locality is made plain on the Dial. Pageants, 
conferences, banquets, are often here; here is the 
entrance to city and to castle Gate; here the porter 
stands beside the two South doors or gates; 
and here is that field used as a Garden, an Orchard, 
a Forest, a Park. Zeta carries the meaning sym- 
boHcally of "Nevermore" or "No More", and is 
the more material form of Omega, being followed 
by the earth and things earthy as well as being 
the conclusion of Bacon's Alphabet. "Zed," 
"Zany," and "Zero" are used as puns here. 
Things artificial and foolish are frequently placed 
here as well as contrasts between Nature and 
Art. 

The Ghost of Hamlet's father is first men- 
tioned at Zeta, appears at both Zeta and Omega, 
and makes the pronouncement, "I am thy 
Father's Spirit," at the Psi-Alpha group. Ghost 
is spelled in both Alpha and Gamma, so that when 
Hamlet tells his friends to "remove" farther 
away from the Ghost, who is calling, "Swear," 
the Dial is really taking both Hamlet and the 
Ghost three steps along either from Alpha to 
Gamma by the Q's or to the third point in Alpha, 
the Dial trick already noticed. This is the 
origin of the exclamation, "O day and night, 
but this is wondrous strange," at which Hamlet 
makes his celebrated speech about there being 
more things in heaven and earth than are "dreamed 
off in our ("our", not "your") philosophy." 

112 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

"Our philosophy" is used as we now say, "our 
modern psychology." 

Hamlet observes that the "times are out of 
joint," but he "sets them right" by the Dial, 
when again, at the top of the clock, he recognises 
his father's spirit once more, and perceives it 
take its final farewell from Omega-Alpha. 

In Richard II, at Q 30, H 6, ("youth?") good 
old John of Gaunt, about to die, says of himself, 
"He that no more must say, is listened more," at 
Zeta. At Q 78, H 6 in the same play the relation 
on the Dial between the two midnight 12's is 
well given with Omega- Alpha words, "So fare you 
well, Unless you please to enter in the Castle, 
And there repose you for the Night." And later, 
but still at the same Q, comes this, "see thy 
Glory, like a shooting Star, Fall to the base 
Earth, from the Firmament: . . . and crossly 
to thy good, all fortune goes." 

In Lear, after the King has brought in the dead 
Cordelia in his arms, the Zeta question comes, 
"Is this the promised end?" (Q 402, H 6). Lear 
cries, "This feather stirs, she lives"; but Kent 
says, with the hopeless finality of Zeta, "O my 
good Master." Here, a moment later, Lear 
entreats, "Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little." 
The count goes steadily on now, and at Omega 
(Q 408, H 12) the King gives up his hope, "No, 
no, no life? Why should a Dog, a Horse, a Rat 
have life. And thou no breath at all?" "Thou 'It 
come no more, Never, never, never, never, 

8 113 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

never." But the count is at that final Omega 
which is also the Alpha of hope. 

It is as if Lear hardly realizes the truth. For 
at the East Gate, at Hour 3, he cries out, "Look 
on her . . . look there," and dies. Not at 
Zeta is Cordelia now, but at the Gale of Sunrise, 
the Altar of the East. There the two, father and 
child, are left together. 

Tau, Hour 7, concerns the "Earth." This has 
many meanings throughout the range of the plays. 
It has to do with the things of home, with things 
of the earth, earthy, and of dust to dust; and in 
the most passionate use of all, it concerns the 
Earth that is England. 

In Richard II there is set that great tribute to 
"native land" that is an exact contrast to the 
traitor's charge at Epsilon. For at Q 3 1 , H 7, John 
of Gaunt speaks those unforgetable words, "Eng- 
land bound in by the triumphant sea. . . . This 
royal Throne of Kings, this sceptred Isle, This 
earth of Majesty, . . . This happy breed of 
men, this little world. This precious stone set in 
the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a 
wall. Or as a Moat defensive to a house, . . . 
This blessed plot, this earthy this Realm, this 
England." 

Is this affection less noble because the Dial 
cipher sets it at Tau, the place of the Earth, as 
if it were indeed the whole Earth to Englishmen ? 
Is it less or more intense in meaning because of the 

114 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

fact that on Francis Bacon's Dial the Sea, which 
serves it in the office of a Moat, is indeed directly 
beyond it, bounding it at the place called Upsilon, 
the Water? Did Bacon love his England less 
because he planned this so? 

A more pitiful tallying with the Earth of 
England is in King John, at the death of young 
Arthur. Arthur dies at Epsilon, saying as he 
leaps to his death, "and England keep my bones." 
England does keep them in the faith of the cipher. 
At Epsilon, when later the child is discovered dead, 
one asks, (Q 173, H 5) "Who killed this Prince?" 

But it is at Tau, the place of England's own 
earth, at Q 175, H 7, ("Ha?") that the body of 
young Arthur is lifted as treasure from the 
ground. And here it is said, by one who watches, 
"How easy dost thou take all England up From 
forth this morsel of dead Royalty?" 

In a still opposite sense, it is at Tau that 
Richard the Third, desperate, and ready to 
barter his very land for safety, does in truth 
offer England itself when he cries, "A Horse — 
a Horse, — my Kingdom for a Horse!" at the place 
of the Earth, and of England, (Q 343, H 7, 
"power?"). 

When in / Henry IV Hotspur asks (Q 91, H 7,) 
^' What Horse? A Roan .... is it not?" he 
is also at England. In direct contrast to Richard, 
he says, "That Roan shall be my Throne" 

And yet again, in a warm human sense, is Tau 
the place of England. After Richard II is forced 

115 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

to make his humiliating entry into London, a 
sympathizing relative asks details of his ride 
through London. She is told about Bulling- 
brooke's riding on a fiery steed that seemed to 
know its master, while Richard had dust flung at 
him from the street. At Q 175, H 7, ("Whilst?") 
she exclaims ^'Barbarism itself must have pitied 
him." This is at Tau. Richard is thrown into 
prison, and just before his death a former groom 
visits him, and at the same Hour 7, Tau, at Q 223, 
Richard can bear no longer hearing the man 
describe his pet horse, for the Groom says, 
"O how it yerned my heart, when I beheld in 
London streets . . . when Bullingbrooke rode 
on roan Barbary, That horse that thou so often 
hath bestrid. That horse that I so carefully have 
dressed." Here Richard breaks in, at H 7, "Rode 
he on Barbary?" 

But another setting of the incident is in 
2 Henry IV ^ at Q 67, H 7, Tau, when, as if to 
urge .upon the decipherer the three incidents at 
Tau, it is asked, '''What trust is in these Times? 
They, that when Richard lived, would have him 
die. Are now become enamoured on his grave. 
Thou that threwst dust upon his goodly head 
When through proud London he came sighing on. 
After the admired heels of Bullingbroke, Criest 
now, O Earthy yield us that King again." The 
four Tau placements have been carefully planned 
to answer the demand, '''What trust is in these 
TimesT' or in this Dial of Time? 

116 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

There is no question as to the earthiness of the 
creature Caliban in Tempest^ and it is at Tau, 
the Earth, that Prospero says to him impatiently, 
yet with reason on the Dial as well as in the text, 
"Thou Earth, thou, speak," at Q 43, H 7 ("What 
shall I do?"). 



Upsilon, Hour 8, concerning "the Water," is 
especially the place of harmony, and of music over 
the water. It is in unison with Psi and Delta, and 
is perhaps the first of the three in the series. 
Bacon had a belief that music was heard most 
perfectly over the water, and thus sounds of 
melody are first heard here and die away upon 
the air at Phi. Ariel's song of the Yellow Sands 
is sung at Upsilon. In Tempest at Q 43, H 7, 
("shall I do?"), at Tau, Prospero commands 
Ariel, "Go make thyself a Nymph o' the Sea," and 
Ariel goes — to the next placement. At Q 44, H 8 
("tortoise when?"), Upsilon, the Folio directions 
read, "Enter Ariel like a water Nymph" — rather 
daintily done, is't not? 

But why in such a sea song as this do we 
suddenly hear the watch dogs bark, and why, 
oh, why, does "Chanticlere" begin to crow? 
Remember that Upsilon is hour 8, which by ship 
time would be a part of the dog watch and shown 
by four bells, and you do hear them, "Hark now 
I hear them, ding dong bell", twice. The bells 
are heard at Chi, a few Q's later, at compass 

117 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

point 8:15. The good dog did bark four bow- 
wows in proper time. 

This is, I think, one of the oldest allusions to the 
dog watch in literature; but it is not an isolated 
one, and recurs so often in the Folio at Upsilon 
and at Delta that it cannot be overlooked. 
Again, at Chi, the bell that rings Duncan's knell 
is used in this same time-pun. 

The bells actually heard here at Chi mark one 
of the early Bacon signatures in the Folio, where, 
in the "Full fathom five" song, beginning, "Ariel 
sings" and ending "ding-dong bell", the capitals 
"F Baconis", one of Bacon's signatures, may be 
seen in the text and duplicated on the Dial at the 
place of the Beacon, or Bacon, watch fires. 
Ferdinand is listening at Chi, and puzzles as to 
where the music comes from, "th' air or th* 
earth." As for Chanticlere, Upsilon carries 
compass time 5:45 to 5:15, surely a most dis- 
creet hour for the cock to crow, even if this were 
not the cross-dial pun between 12, the point 12, 
Delta, and point 24, Upsilon, a chain of jests. 

In Tempest at Q 92, H 8, Upsilon, again, but 
so far along in the play that music might have 
been set anywhere else on the Dial, there comes 
("Hes that.?") the often quoted sentence, "They'll 
take suggestion as a Cat laps milk. They'll tell 
the Clock, To any business that We say befits the 
hour." One business befitting this hour is as- 
suredly music; and the Folio directions again 

118 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

read, "Enter Ariel with Music and Song." The 
song "Orpheus with his Lute made Trees" is 
sung at Upsilon, at Q 104, H 8, in Henry VIII . 

The Fool's first snatch of song in Lear, "They 
for sudden joy did weep, And I for sorrow sung 
That such a King should play Bo Peep And go 
the Fool among," is at Upsilon, set there by Lear's 
question (Q 92, H 8), "When were you wont to be 
so full of songs. Sirrah?" Bo Peep may be seen 
spelled at Upsilon. The song "It was a Lover 
and his Lass" is sung at Upsilon. Reference to 
the Swan Song in King John is at Upsilon. 

Many of the "washings" are at Upsilon. Lady 
Macbeth makes the movement recognized as 
washing her hands at Upsilon, the place of the 
water. When Richard says, in Richard II at 
Q 80, H 8 ("seas?"), that not all the water in the 
rough rude sea "could wash the balm from an 
annointed King," he has no thought that long 
afterward, at Q 152, H 8, ("resign the Crown?") 
he should be forced to cry that his pride was 
utterly gone, and that "With mine own Tears I 
wash away my Balm." 

In humorous mood is the kindly Friar's gibe at 
Romeo for changing sweethearts with such 
promptitude, "What a deal of brine hath washed 
thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline?" he remarks at 
Q 104, H 8, and continues drolly, "Lo here upon 
thy cheek a stain doth sit Of an old tear that is not 
washed off yet." Sometimes the hour Upsilon 

119 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

is simply the sea itself, as in Richard II, Q 80, H 8, 
"How brooks your Grace the air After your late 
tossing on the breaking Sea?" 

The drowning of Ophelia in Hamlet is at Upsilon. 
Her brother's cry, "O where?" is at Q 2>S^, H 8, 
and at once comes the description of the scene and 
the story of the Willow. It is said that she 
"chanted snatches of old tunes." That praise of 
Helen, "Why she is a Pearl, Whose price hath 
launched above a thousand ships" is at Upsilon, 
Q 128, H 8 ("keeping?"), in Troilus and Cressida. 



Phiy Hour 9, is "concerning the Air." Like 
Gamma and Zeta, it is largely a place for time 
references, and for places, for exits and entrances, 
rather than qualities of character. It is the 
evening and early night; the Gate of Sunset, 
because it is the West Gate; the entrance to the 
gate of either Paradise or its opposite land; and 
the abode often of the fairies of the air. 

The sound of the letter itself is often played 
upon. Not all, but many, of the exclamations 
"Fie, fie" occurring at important passages are set 
at Phi for the obvious pun. In Taming, where the 
undercurrent of humor in the cipher accompanies 
the text from first to last, it is at Phi that Kate 
begins her admonition to the other wives less 
"tamed" than herself. Being at Phi, she opens 
her speech becomingly "Fie, fie." References to 
"Fans" often refer to the breezes at the airy Phi, 
and are set at Phi and Alpha. In Romeo and 

120 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

Juliet y when the Nurse says to her man Peter, "My 
Fan," impressively, at Phi, the fact is stressed by 
the comments of the watching young men, who 
wonder audibly why she asks for her fan. The 
Dial tells why. The Fan-shape of the Hours at 
the top of the Dial make a real Fan for Peter 
to bring in at his count i . 

Phi, as the West Gate, is often used for the 
entrance to city or castle, but it is not so dis- 
tinctly the Broad Gate as is Chi lo, since on the 
Dial the Broad Gate is seen almost entirely at 
Chi. The full weight of a Broad Gate allusion 
must fall at Chi, H lo, to be most powerful; and 
Phi is the approach to that Gate rather than the 
Gate itself. It has, therefore, two parts to play, 
and is easily understood by the text in either part. 



Chty Hour lOy is "concerning the Fire," — fire 
as a Watch fire, a Beacon, a Torch; fire as the 
Little Candle burning in one's home; fire as the 
flame of Anger, of Folly, of Selfishness, of Passion, 
or of Zeal; fire, last of all, in the Dantesque sense 
of the word — the fire of hell and all its devils. 
It is the Broad Gate and also a castle or city Gate. 
The question, "Oh who can hold a fire in his hand 
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus.'*" is at Chi, 
Q 22, H lo, in Richard II. The exclamation 
"What fire is in mine ears?" is in Much Ado, 
Q ii8, H lo. In 2 Henry VI, the order to "^^/ 
London Bridge on fire'' is at Q 238, H lo. 

In Hamlet^ at Q 334, H 10, ("becomes it.?") 
121 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Ophelia enters in her distraught mood, offering 
the rosemary and the rue. Here it is said of her, 
"Thought, and AiBiction, Passion, Hell itself, 
She turns to Favor, and to Prettiness." 

The beginning of the Gate at Chi, known as 
the Broad Gate, is to be seen on the Dial at the 
last line of Phi. References to Chi sometimes 
begin at Phi, for this reason, and form a double 
tally. Again in Hamlet^ at Q 57, H 9, ("custom?") 
it is written, "Angels and Ministers of Grace, 
defend us: Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin 
damned. Bring with thee airs from Heaven, or 
blasts from Hell." Here the Air at Phi, and the 
Fires of Hell at Chi are rightly set on the Dial. 

On the other side of Chi, the "Celestial" place- 
ment Psi is seen, in direct contrast. This also is 
noted in the text tallies, as when in Hamlet^ at 
Q 70, H 10 ("lead me?") the Ghost says, "My 
hour is almost come. When I to sulphurous and 
tormenting Flames Must render up myself." 
And at the next Q, 71, H 11, ("What?") the 
Ghost seems to recognize his changed locality by 
declaring, "I am thy Father's Spirit," with a new 
dignity. 

Hamlet's soliloquy, "Now might I do it pat," 
is at Speech point 30, in Chi, where he exclaims 
with all the stress of the placement behind his 
words, as he thinks of killing the King; "And that 
his Soul may be as damned and black As Hell to 
which it goes." 

Selfishness, cruelty, and the harder vices find 
122 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

their placement here, as if the fire burning were 
that of hate in the soul. It is here that Lear, in 
the agony of his desertion, cries out loud, "How 
sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a 
thankless child." (Q io6, H lo "show?") 



Psi, Hour llf is often the Celestial Country 
itself. It is the place of Love, Joy, Mercy, 
Victory after grief. Passages chosen from the 
placement at this hour might be harmonized with 
the spirit of Pilgrim's Progress and with the music 
of Stillman Kelley's Pilgrim, in all its glory of 
triumph and peace. 

Here, as in the garden of Paradise, the eternal 
flowers bloom. This is where, in reply to the 
question in Midsummer, "Hast thou the flower 
there?" (Q ^S^ ^ ^^)> Oberon gives the magic 
line, "I know a banke where the wilde time 
blows." Perhaps of all the references in the 
Folio to Psi, the celestial land, this could least 
have been spared. 

When, in Merchant, Portia makes her speech 
about the quality of mercy that's not strained, 
she stands at Psi, the place of mercy. When, in 
Taming, Kate ends her great speech to the other 
women, she stands at Psi. And when Romeo, in 
the balcony scene known to all the world, ex- 
claims "O speak again bright angel," he stands at 
Psi. 

This is preeminently the place of fine and good 
women upon the Dial, and of their noblest mo- 

123 



BACQN^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

merits. The first woman to be set there is Mi- 
randa, whom her father places there with his 
loving words, "O a Cherubin thou wast that 
didst preserve me. Thou didst smile, infused 
with a fortitude from heaven." This gives at 
once the ideal quality of the group. 

When Miranda, at her first startled glimpse of 
Ferdinand, asks "What is't a Spirit?" she is at 
Psi (Q 47, H ii) and here she says that she never 
saw before a thing "so noble." 

Here at point 23y the last line of Psi, is set, in 
Love's Labor's Lost^ that hardly excelled tribute 
to a woman, "A Gallant Lady." Q 59, H 11, 
(same?). 

It is to be remembered that many of the Alpha 
references share their most gracious qualities with 
Psi, and that with Alpha it is the supreme height 
of the Dial. It unites with Delta and Upsilon in 
stressing the human, the strong, the harmonious 
things of the cipher, and is one of the three con- 
cords of the Dial, Psi-Alpha, Delta, Upsilon. 



Hour 12^ Omega, is concerning "Meteors." It 
does concern heavenly things, constellations, 
signs, portents. The use of the word Meteors is 
probably meant for a hint at the Blazon and the 
signs and symbols used at Alpha-Omega. 

But Omega also companions Alpha: it is the 
invisible comrade of Alpha. It opposes its sense 
of fatality, death, and the end of all to the new 
morning and the new start of Alpha. Like the 

124 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

other 12 at Zeta, it is especially connected with 
references to sleep, to dreams, to visions, and to 
supernatural affairs. 

In Cymbeline, the scene where Imogen is sleep- 
ing tranquilly while the snake lachimo spies about 
her room is begun at Psi, the celestial placement. 
At Q 85, H I ("is it.?") at Omega-Alpha, Imogen 
is told the time correctly as "Almost midnight. 
Madam." She gives her gentle orders, beauti- 
fully set at this group on the Dial, "Fold down 
the leaf . . . Take not away the Taper," 
and says her little prayer. Then she sleeps. 

Even lachimo, as he steals forth from the 
trunk, is abashed by the quietness of her slumber. 
He sees the lone taper burning by the bed, and 
says to himself, "The Flame of the Taper bows 
toward her." This is more than an act of adora- 
tion on the part of a rascal: it is more than illu- 
sion; it is one of the scientific facts noted by Lord 
Bacon in his study of the action of flame. 

For in Montagu, Vol. 2, p. 30, note 125, 
Bacon is quoted thus: 

"If a man speak a good loudness against the 
flame of a candle, it will not make it tremble 
much. . . . But gentle breathing, or blowing 
without speaking, will move the candle more." 
This is one of the multitude of instances where 
it is difficult not to see that Bacon's mind was so 
rich in illustrative material that only he and not 
another could have produced the plays. 

But, after all the Hours have been tallied on the 
125 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Dial, there remains a passage from King John 
that fits no one place, and yet fits the entire Dial 
itself. 

Bacon's name for the Alphabet of Nature ^ the 
Abecedarium Naturae^ does suggest the old Absey 
book, or Alphabet Book, that was the Primer of the 
Elizabethan child. The Dial cipher somewhat 
corresponds to such a Primer, for it has answers 
and questions waiting to be studied. The Dial 
itself offers an endless number of answers, or 
tallies. But if Lord Bacon had made no reference 
to any such thing as an Absey book in his plays, 
it would have taken no period of countable time 
for the non-Baconian to speak up and say, 
"There is no evidence that Lord Bacon ever heard 
of an Alphabet Book, or an Absey Book, or ever 
thought of one while he was writing a play, or 
even that he could not have called his cipher 
an Abecedarium, while in entire ignorance of any 
such thing as an Absey Book: and even if he did 
mention an Absey book, how should that agree 
with his Alphabet of Nature?" After which the 
non-Baconian would add whatever negatives 
his Shakespearean range of words would enable 
him to use. 

But here, in King John, is Bacon tallying his 
own Absey questions with the Dial itself. He 
does this in the scene at the Inn, at Q 15, Hour 3, 
("name?"). Hear now this Speaker at the Inn, 
as he imagines himself having picked out a 
stranger to talk with: 

126 



THE DIAL HOURS IN THE TEXT 

"Thus leaning on my elbow I begin, 

I shall beseech you; that is question now, 

And then comes answer like an Absey book: 

O sir, says answer, at your best command, 

At your employment, at your service sir: 

No sir, says question^ I sweet sir at yours^ 

And so ere answer knows what question would. 

Saving in Dialogue of Complement, 

And talking of the Alpes and Appenines, 

The Perennean and the River Poe, 

It draws toward supper in conclusion so. 

But this is worshipful society 

And fits the mounting spirit like myself: 



And not alone in habit and device. 
Exterior form, outward accoutrement.; 
But/row the inward motion to deliver 
Sweet, sweet sweet poison for the ages tooth. 
Which though I will not practise to deceive, 
Yet to avoid deceit I mean to learnt 

Could one possibly pack the Alphabet and 
the Dial into smaller "compass" than this? 
Both Answer and Question waiting for the other, 
Answer placed forever on the Dial chart. Question 
forever set where it may find a fitting Answer; 
Answer all unknowing till the Question stops, yet 
ever ready to give its Dial complement, — its letter, 
its word, its time, its place, its distinguished and 
most distinguishing qualities, at the hour of 
demand? 

127 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Notice that on the Dial at Gamma the River 
Poe, or Po, begins to look for the first time like a 
real word. As one goes "toward supper" on the 
Dial, the word is found again at Zeta, and Epsilon, 
twice, — a good word by which to locate the 
"drawing down" along the Dial. The word "Dial- 
logue" itself is possibly a hint. When the speaker 
says he does not wish to deceive, but learns deceit 
in order to avoid deceiving, he says exactly what 
Bacon must have thought when he built into the 
outward form of the plays the interior message. 
The "inward motion" of the Dial Q's does in fact 
deliver material for the "ages tooth." The "con- 
clusion so" is Zeta 78, the last Hour of Bacon's 
Alphabet. 



128 



CHAPTER VII 
THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

Macbeth is built on the discords of the Dial. 
These are Hours Chi, Epsilon, and Zeta. Lady 
Macbeth seldom stands for even a moment at Psi, 
the celestial placement, where Portia is so often 
found in Merchant. The good Anthonio often 
takes his place at Delta, the Hour of Justice; and 
at the height of the Dial comes the final defeat of 
Macbeth with the triumph of right. 

Chi, the place of Fire, in all its Broad Gate 
meaning, is that spot at which Macbeth feels 
most at home. He enters and speaks first at Chi, 
(Q lo, H lo, "thou?"). He makes his fascinated 
inquiries about being Thane of Cawdor at Q 17, 
H 5, ("of Cawdor?"), and that is at Epsilon, the 
place of treachery and plots. 

At Epsilon he tries to ask himself why he 
yields to the "horrid image" in his own heart. 
Here at Epsilon he speaks of "Thought, whose 
murder yet is but fantastical." Here he says, 
"My dull Brain was wrought." The first use of 
Epsilon as the place of anger is in Tempest^ 
where, at Hour 5, Prospero says, "My old brain 
is troubled," and where Miranda remarks that 
this is the first time she ever saw her Father "so 
distempered." 

9 129 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Tau, the Earth, is also stressed in Macbeth in 
its meaning of dust to dust. 

When Cawdor's death is announced it is at 
Tau, Q 31, H 7, ("returned?") and here at the 
place of the end of man's life it is written, "Noth- 
ing in his life became him like the leaving it." 

But the Delta Hour, with its appeal to final 
Justice, is used at Q 16, H 4 ("show?"). This is 
the place at which the witches greet Banquo and 
hail him as "Lesser than Macbeth, and greater." 

It is at Q 23, H II, ("here?") that Macbeth is 
given the title. Thane of Cawdor, and it is at 
Q 25, H I, that he exclaims, "Why do you dress 
me in borrowed robes?" as if, like lago, he were 
out of place at Alpha. 

Lady Macbeth's first entrance is at Tau, 
(Q 31, H 7, "returned?"). Here she reads the 
letter telling of her husband's promised earthly 
greatness. At Phi, the Air, (Q ^Z^ H 9, "him?") 
she summons the airy ^'spirits that tend on mortal 
thoughts," and here beside the Broad Gate she 
calls upon thick Night to come and pall her "in 
the dunnest smoke of Hell." 

The first meeting of Macbeth and his wife in 
the tragedy occurs here at the Broad Gate. Lady 
Macbeth herself takes the count directly to Chi 
by her incisive question about the King's de- 
parture: "And when goes hence?" 

Macbeth stammers "Tomorrow — " but the 
woman declares, "O never shall sun that morrow 
see." Her advice at Chi to Macbeth is — "Look 

130 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

like the innocent flower, but be the serpent 
under it." 

The King himself takes the count to Psi ii, 
and here, still under the benignant influence of 
Duncan, Macbeth soliloquizes, his two natures 
at strife, "If it were done, when 'tis done, then 
'twere well, It were done quickly." 

"That but this blow Might be the be all, and 
the end all, Here, But here, upon this Bank and 
School of timey We'd jump the life to come." The 
FoHo printing of "Bank and School" suits well 
the Dial, which with its letters forms a School 
or Absey Book. Lady Macbeth has just told her 
husband that his "Face" was "as a Book, where 
men May read strange matters." Here on the 
Dial at these Hours the Absey letters them- 
selves occur four times, two rows at the top 
circle, two rows at the lower circle, — the only 
such place on the Dial where "AB C DE" so 
well suggests the "Absey". 

In another form of interpretation, the "Bank" 
may be the bordering slope of the Dial rounding 
from Hour Psi toward the height of the Dial at 
Alpha. It is also that same Bank of which it is 
said in Midsummer^ "I know a banke where the 
wilde time blows". "Jump" may be a Dial pun 
— taken from the "Jump" made by Psi over 
Alpha; and, in a sense, if there were no Alpha 
thus crowding close to Psi — if Omega, the End, 
came instead at 12 — Alpha the Hfe to come, the 
new start, would in fact be "jumped." 

131 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

At Delta, Macbeth has an instant of repentance. 
At Q 40, H 4, ("has?") he declares that he will 
"proceed no further in this business." On the 
instant Lady Macbeth takes him to Epsilon, as 
before she had taken him to Chi, with her sharp 
question, "Was the hope drunk. Wherein you 
dressed yourself?" (Q 41, H 5). 

At Q 45, H 9, ("Esteem?"), a bit of humor 
enlivens the cipher. "Letting I dare not wait 
upon I would, Like the poor Cat i' th' addage," 
is at Phi, and not only is there a Cat on each side 
of the Lady as she speaks, upon the Dial, but the 
"adage" is about the cat that loved fish yet 
hated to put her toes into the water, and Lady 
Macbeth has just passed through Upsilon, the 
place of the water, as she has been speaking. 
This is also near the Blazon of the Fish in 
Tempest. 

The stress on "No More" in the play itself 
follows somewhat the "No's" and "No more's" 
to be seen six times on the Dial face. Macbeth 
has said "Nothing is, but what is not." He is 
again at the entrance to the Broad Gate, with the 
last "No" or "No More" staring him in the face. 
When he makes answer to his wife, here at Phi, 
"I dare do all that may become a man. Who 
dares no more, is none," the sense of doom, of 
finality, is what the Dial has beaten into his 
brain at last. That which Macbeth feared may 
well have been the great No Mores — no more of 
sleep, no more of peace, no mor^ of courage and 

132 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

the good day's living, the blank "No More" — 
of what? 

And once more, here at Chi, does Lady Mac- 
beth drag her husband straight to the middle of 
the Broad Gate. It is at Q 46, H 10, ("to me?") 
that she taunts him with what she herself would 
have done, rather than be the coward that she 
feels he is; and blindly, hysterically, as if all the 
devils at Chi had maddened her, she snatches at 
the extreme of horrors. 

The much debated point as to whether "We 
fail?" is really a question or not may be settled 
by the Dial fact that the two words of Lady 
Macbeth, in this question form, serve to take the 
Q directly upon the top of the Dial — (Q 48, H 12,) 
where it is most appropriate to say, "Screw your 
courage to the top notch.'' Lady Macbeth echoes: 
"JVefaiP. But screw your courage to the sticking 
placCy And we'll not fail." It is the Omega- 
Alpha Q, as the Folio gives it. 

At Omega, the place of sleep, and of midnight, 
she plans, "When Duncan is asleep" — and speaks 
of drugging the guards. Duncan's death is 
determined upon by Macbeth at Delta, (Q 52, H 4, 
"Death?") in what is a form of irony on the 
Dial, since it was here exactly that Macbeth had 
once decided not to do the deed. But whatever 
Macbeth may plot, the soul of Duncan, even as 
he speaks, waits at the place of the eternal justice. 

The frequent time trick between Omega 12 
and Delta, point 12, is done at Q 53, H 5, where 

^33 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Banquo asks the time ("Night, Boy?"), and on 
being told the "Moon is down" replies that "she 
goes down at twelve^ But at his Personal point 
2, H I, Fleance says, correctly, "I take 'tis later. 
Sir." 

At Epsilon, where already treacherous thoughts 
have assailed Macbeth, the worthy Banquo also 
feels the force of them, and prays, "Merciful 
Powers, restrain in me the cursed thoughts^ 
Macbeth and Banquo bring in the letters of the 
Blazon at Zeta, their "Torches" having hinted 
at the fact. 

Macbeth's cry — "Is this a Dagger which I see 
before me?—" is at Q t^d, H 8, ("hand?"); and 
at the place of the Air, Phi 9, he asks, "fatal 
Vision^ sensible to feeling, as to sight?" But it is 
again at the Broad Gate, at the place of Fire, that 
he asks (Q 58, H 10), "Or art thou but a Dagger 
of the Mind, A false creation Proceeding from the 
heat-oppressed Brain?" 

Another time trick, referring to the Dog Watch 
at Upsilon 8, is here made at Chi with "whose 
Howl's his Watch'' (even though it be a Wolf 
that Howls), and with the "Bell rings" in the 
Folio directions. Macbeth hears and says, "it is a 
Knell, That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell.'* 
And Lady Macbeth is still at the place of Fire 
when she enters and says, "What hath quenched 
them, hath given me fire." With a thought of the 
Gate itself she adds, "The Doors are open." 

Macbeth stays but a second on the celestial 

134 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

placement with his Q 59, H 11, ("Who's there?") 
and gets at once to Omega, ("What Hoa?" 
Q 60, H 12). It is at Omega that Lady Macbeth 
explains, "Had he not resembled My Father as 
he slept I had done 't." 

At Q 62, H 2 — at Beta the place of "Impos- 
sible" — Macbeth asks "Didst thou not hear a 
noise?" feeling it impossible that she has not. 
At Epsilon (Q 65, H 5) he asks, "As I descended?" 
and to one who has watched the swift Q's descend- 
ing the Dial to Epsilon, it has almost the effect 
of a tragic hint at the descent indeed to Epsilon, 
the place of the traitor. And his wife makes 
answer "Ay." 

It is at Zeta, the other twelve of midnight and 
slumber, that Macbeth begins — "one did laugh 
in's sleeps'' "say their Prayers, And addressed 
them again to sleep.'' "Wherefore could I not 
pronounce Amen?" This takes the count upon 
the Earth placement, Tau, (Q 67, H 7); and here, 
where Lady Macbeth had first read his letter, 
the man says now — "Methought I heard a voice 
cry, Sleep no more: Macbeth does murder Sleep, 
the innocent Sleep. . . . The death of each 
day's Life, . . . great Nature's second 
Course, Chief Nourisher in Life' Feast." 

Lady Macbeth's quick "W^hat do you mean?" 
takes the count to Upsilon. And here, as in 
Merchant, the Notes of Lord Bacon give a 
distinct answer. In his Notes 54, 55, and 57 
{Philosophical Works, Spedding, Vol. II, pages 

^2S 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

;^62-262) Bacon is writing about the best means 
of "conveying and converting the nourishment" 
throughout the body, and says, "The third 
means . . . is to send forth the nourishment 
the better by sleep. . . . Certain it is, (as is 
commonly believed) that sleep doth nourish 
much." 

Again Macbeth repeats his wail, "Still it 
cried Sleep no more to all the house". And with 
characteristic stolidity Lady Macbeth asks who 
it was that cried like that. I think Francis Bacon 
had often seen just her type in the law courts of 
that day. Now she has her mind on practical 
matters. She considers the "water" at Upsilon, 
as before she had taken note of the Cat, and at 
Phi 9 (Q 69, H 9— "cried?") she tells Macbeth, 
here where he had seen his Visions, that he must 
not think "so Brain-sickly of things," and orders 
him to "Go get some Water ^ And wash this 
filthy witness from your Hand." 

And now, with her Q 70, H 10, she takes him 
again to the Broad Gate, — "Why did you bring 
these Daggers from the place?" It was at this 
same Chi that Macbeth had first described the 
daggers in detail, that he had gone forth to murder 
Duncan, and that Lady Macbeth had entered 
saying, "He is about it." Now she tells him 
calmly to take the daggers back again. Daggers 
had not troubled her in prevision; actually before 
her, she knows what to do with them. But 
Macbeth will "go no more." And here Lady 

136 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

Macbeth cries out — "Give me the Daggers: — 
'tis the Eye of Childhood That fears a painted 
Deviir 

"Knocking" is first heard here at the Broad 
Gate. At Q 72, H 12, Macbeth demands: 
"How is't with me, when every noise appals me?" 
and the Dial answers him. The End: "Omega — 
Omega." 

When Macbeth exclaims — "Will all great Nep- 
tune's Ocean wash this blood Clean from my 
hand?" the great undercurrent of the Beta cipher 
answers him, "Impossible — Impossible." Now 
comes "making the Green one. Red'' The only 
place on the Dial where "Red" is found within 
one group is at Beta, and Blood is also at Beta. 
Red is made at Alpha-Psi. Green finds two G's 
at Alpha Line i. "The Green one. Red," is a bit 
of Dial verification and emphasis, — the three 
groups do make "Red" and they are "One." 

At Beta also Lady Macbeth returns and 
voices another Impossibility, "My Hands are 
of your color: but I shame To wear a heart so 
white." She says, "I hear a knocking at the 
South entry." This is a fact, for the Porter at 
the end of his long devil-portering remains at 
Tau, after hearing knocks at every Gate on the 
Dial. Tau is S S W and S W. 

Still the count is at Beta — "A little Water 
clears us of this deed." Impossible. 

At the East Gate, the Gate of Sunrise, there 
is more knocking; and at Q 75, H 3, ("Is it then?") 

137 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Macbeth, at the place of awakening, speaks to 
the far-off knocker — ''Wake Duncan with thy 
knocking — I would thou couldst." 

The Porter scene opens at Gamma, the time 
being either three or six o'clock, probably six, 
since the Porter had overslept. The Porter refers 
to his having heard knocks at Chi, by saying 
"If a man were Porter of Hell-Gate, he should 
have old turning the Key." Both East and West 
Gates and Keys are here connected, in the speech 
as on the Dial, by the crossing "spear." "Come in 
time" is a Dial proof, "in time" being spelt only 
within Gamma and Alpha. 

At Epsilon — a fitting place — the "Equivocator" 
is described, with the Epsilon words, "Who 
committed Treason enough for God's sake"; 
and there was probably no man in England who 
knew more about the type of person thus dealt 
with than Lord Bacon. 

At Tau the Porter begins to tire of his sport. 
At Q 79, H 7 ("are you.^") he observes, "but this 
place is too cold for Hell," recalling the good hot 
Fire at Chi, where the text made the knocking to 
be heard. He considers, "I'll Devil-Porter it no 
further." He speaks in place, not in time — 
"further", not "longer." Of the Dial he is 
thinking when he says, "I had thought to have 
let in some of all the Professions, that go the 
Primrose way to th' everlasting Bonfire." The 
Bonfire is at Chi. 

The Rose and the Prim or "Prime" may be 

138 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

seen at Zeta-Tau — the original name, "Prime- 
Rose", suiting admirably at the South I2 of 
the clock — the line of 1-12. In Hamlet^ when 
Ophelia speaks of the "Steep and thorny way to 
Heaven" and the opposing "primrose path of 
daUiance," she is at the top of the Dial, the other 
Prime, 12-1. To follow the Primrose path on the 
Dial, the Porter must have gone through the 
garden of the Earth at Zeta-Tau, passed the 
place of the west wind, that is a "nourisher of 
flowers" as Bacon has it, and reached Chi itself, 
the place of the Fire. This is "further" than the 
Porter cares to go just now. 

But again Macbeth appears at the place Chi. 
He cannot evade or escape it. When Macduff asks 
"Is thy Master stirring.?" the Q is 82, H 10; and, 
as if he had been waiting there all the time, 
Macbeth appears. At the place of things Celestial, 
Psi II, where the good Duncan had already been 
seen and had talked, Macduff asks Macbeth if the 
King is stirring, and Macbeth says truthfully, 
"Not yet." Duncan is indeed forever more at 
the Celestial Country. Strikingly, he is by his 
Personal count exactly opposite at point 17, the 
final Zeta, "No More." 

The description of the unruly night parallels 
that in Julius Caesar^ (also at the top of the Dial,) 
before the murder of Caesar. The announcement 
of the King's death is made at Alpha-Omega; 
and at Q 87, H 3 ("his Majesty.?") the Gate of 
Sunrise once more, it is shouted out loud, ''Awake^ 

139 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

amake. Ring the Alarum bell: Malcolm, wake^ 
Shake off this Downey sleep, Death's counterfeit 
— up, up and see The great Doom's Image." 

Lady Macbeth's question "What's the Busi- 
ness?" is at Delta, but on the instant she rushes 
away from that unfamiliar placement with the 
Epsilon question, "That such a hideous Trumpet 
calls to parley The sleepers of the House?" 
She could speak this at no other place but the 
place of traitors. Here Macduff says, "The 
repetition in a Woman's ear. Would murder as 
it fell." And then, "O Banquo, Banquo, Our 
Royal Master's murdered." It is Epsilon indeed. 
Macbeth is again at Chi (Q 94, H 10, "moment?") 
when he gives the almost morbidly decorative 
account of the King's wounds, and when he 
reaches Psi 11 by his question ending "Courage 
to make love's known?". Lady Macbeth is over- 
come. As if she cast herself headlong on the 
Celestial Mercy at Psi 11, she cries, "Help me 
hence, hoa." 

The next Q reaches Alpha-Omega, and here, 
at the place of the Cross, Banquo makes what is 
almost a solemn affirmation, "Fears and scruples 
shake us: In the great hand of God I standi and 
thence, against the undivulged pretence, I fight, 
Of Treasonous malice." 

The reference to the "Travailing Lampe" 
struggling with its tiny flame against the in- 
creasing brightness of the morning, is at Beta, 
and the time is close upon dawn; therefore it is 

140 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

''travailing' that is meant, not "travelling." 
The phrase "when living Light should kiss it?" 
comes close after, (Q 99, H 3,) the Sunrise or 
East Gate. 

When Ross answers "Why see you not?" to 
the inquiry about how the world goes, he is at 
Q 1 01, H 5; and the meaning of his reply is em- 
phasized by the Epsilon placement that tells of 
treachery and foreboding. 

Macbeth is again at Chi when he asks that 
sinister question of Banquo, whom he is plotting 
to kill, "Ride you this afternoon?" (Q 106, H 10). 
His next inquiry is accented by being set at that 
land from which no traveller returns — Psi 11, 
"Is't far you ride?" Yes — far, and never to 
return. 

At Omega Macbeth says that he will keep 
himself "till Supper time alone," and bids his 
friends entertain themselves till "seven at Night." 
When Banquo is actually surprised by the murder- 
ers, the point time gives 7:30, and there is mention 
of "the belated traveller," at Phi (Q 117, H 9 
"with us?"). Here, too, at point West, Phi, it is 
said, "The fVest yet glimmers with some streaks 
of Day." 

To return to Macbeth's plot itself, it was at 
Alpha-Omega that he said, "To be thus, is 

nothing, but to be safely thus none but he, 

whose being I do fear." And it is once more at 
Epsilon, Q 113, H 5 ("forever?") that he makes 
all his plans with the two murderers, promises to 

141 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

acquaint them with "the perfect Spy o' th' 
time," and muses on the outcome, "Banquo, thy 
SouFs flight, If it find Heaven, must find it out 
tonight." Find on the dial the word Soul. Here, 
at Epsilon, the Soul suddenly shines out, as if, 
even through all that treachery and blood, the 
Soul of Banquo did indeed remain unscathed. 

At Q 115, H 7, ("alone?") Lady Macbeth and 
her husband are speaking of sleep, as once before 
at Tau, "And sleep In the affliction of those 
terrible Dreams." "After Life's fitful fever, 
he sleeps well." The reference "eat our Meal" 
directly recalls the "Nourisher in Life's Feast" 
of the earher Q. At that first placement he spoke 
of sleep as "Balm of hurt Minds." Now once 
more, at Tau, he speaks only of "the torture of 
the Mind." Has it been of no literary value, 
and for no rhythmical accent that can touch the 
subconscious mind, that such "beats" as this 
recur and recur upon the Dial and strike ever the 
same Hour upon the syllables of recorded Time ? 

The banquet is begun at the top of the Dial. 
Here the Ghost of Banquo enters, at 12 of the 
clock (Q 121, Hi "safe.?"). 

At Beta (Q 122, H 2, "Company?") Macbeth 
feels the presence of the Ghost and refuses to 
sit down, "The Table's full." Impossible! 

At Epsilon, that Epsilon where the murder was 
planned to its last detail, Macbeth recognizes 
the Ghost as Banquo; for he cries out, "Which of 
you have done this?" here where he had so flip- 

142 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

pantly consigned the soul of Banquo to heaven 
or to hell. 

Lady Macbeth's imperious, "Are you a man?" 
is asked at Tau (Q 1 27, H 7,) — the placement of 
Caliban, the man of the earth. 

It is at the place of the Air, Phi, that Macbeth 
says, "Avaunt, and quit my sight," "Take any 
shape but that," "Can such things be, And 
overcome us like a Summers cloud.'' And it is at 
Psi-Alpha, that top of the Dial where the banquet 
scene began, that Lady Macbeth dismisses the 
guests: "at once, good night. Stand not upon the 
order of your going. But go at once." 

When Macbeth asks, "What is the night.?" at 
Q 132, H 12, (Omega-Alpha), his wife answers 
correctly on the Dial — "Almost at odds with 
mornings which is which." And here at the top 
of the clock she presently says, "You lack the 
season of all Natures, sleep." 

At Q 1 40, H 8, ("done.''"), when Lenox says, 
"Had he Duncan's Sons under his key, (As, an't 
please Heaven he shall not)," there is a notable 
Dial accent. For there is no Key at Upsilon; 
and so, in like manner, shall no Key be turned upon 
Duncan's Sons. 

The witches first entered at Alpha i (Q i) and 
asked the familiar "when shall we three meet 
again?" with perhaps a reference to the triple 
group at the top of the Dial. Macbeth met them 
first at Chi, and now again at Chi the witches 
appear, (Q 142, H 10, "MacdufF?"). Hecat had 

143 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

charged them to meet her "at the pit of Acheron"; 
and certainly no place on the Dial but Chi, the 
place of Fire, Devils, and Hell, can be so well 
called "pit of Hades," where they do meet in 
fact. There is a passing allusion to the Blazon in 
"The Hedge-Pigge," and to the Gate in "Open 
locks," while the Blazon letters are also given. 
Now Macbeth enters again. 

Macbeth's Q 144, H 12, ("you do?") sets the 
scene at Alpha-Omega, where the first of the 
"Apparitions" appears. At Delta, where Banquo 
had been greeted by the witches as the father of 
Kings, Macbeth asks (Q 148, H 4) if Banquo's 
children shall "ever Reign in this Kingdom?" 
At Epsilon, next, he asks, "Who shakes that 
Caldron?" 

At Zeta the pageant of the Eight Kings begins, 
"and Banquo last." Three pass at Zeta, again like 
the Three at the other 1 2. The fifth King arrives 
at Q 153, H 9, Phi, and Macbeth cries, "will the 
line stretch out to th' crack of Doom?" and at 
Chi, "Another yet?" At Q 155, H 11, Psi, 
Banquo appears, with his glass, "and points at 
them for his." "What? Is this so?" These two 
Q's set Banquo at the height of the Dial in all its 
significance of Kingship. Q's 156, 157, H's 12, i. 

When the review is over, Macbeth exclaims, at 
Delta, "Let this pernicious hour. Stand aye 
accursed in the Kalendar." But the cipher 
reveals the fact that it is Macbeth himself who is 
accurst, not the noble Hour of Delta. 

144 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

In the scene where the family of Macduff is 
murdered, the wife of Macduff is at Alpha-Psi 
when she first speaks, and also when she says 
later, "Whither should I fly? I have done no 
harm." 

At Delta (Q 184, H 4) the murderers demand 
"Where is your husband?" and proudly and 
finely she speaks at the place of goodness; "I hope 
in no place so unsanctified, Where such as thou 
mayst find him." Here, too, the little lad speaks 
out, as did his mother, fearlessly, "Thou liest 
thou Shag-eared Villain." The Murderer retorts, 
"What you Egg?" and is at Epsilon, the one 
place on the Dial where such a deed should be 
done. Somewhere between Epsilon and Zeta 
the child is given his death blow, and at the South 
doorway he cries to his mother, "Run away." 

At Q 191, H II, ("breed?"), Macduff describes 
the young Malcolm's mother as one who, "Oftener 
upon her knees, than on her feet. Died every day 
she lived." And here Malcolm affirms his own 
innocence; "But God above deal between thee 
and me:" a placement that serves to establish the 
rectitude of Malcolm. 

Macduff's inquiry for his wife is at Epsilon, 
where the murder was begun. Macduff goes on, 
"And all my Children?" Ross replies, "Well, 
too." This at Zeta, where the little lad fled 
dying. Macduff continues — "The Tyrant has 
not battered at their peace?" This is Q 199, H 7. 
It takes its figure from the many instances of the 

145 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Tau Gate as a place of attack and siege — a battle- 
ment in itself. It is a clear case of the Dial's 
imposing its own illustrations upon the one 
familiar with it. 

At Phi, the West Gate, and the frequent "exit 
of mortality" throughout the Folio, Macduff is 
told of the murder of all his household. At Psi 1 1 
he asks a question most piteously stressed by the 
fact that it comes exactly upon the place where his 
wife had blamed him for his absence: "And I 
must be from thence?" (Q 203, H 11). At Omega 
he repeats, "My Wife killed too?" and Ross 
answers only, "I have said." Omega, Omega. 

At Beta, (Q 206, H 2) Macduff's words are, 
"Did you say All?" And again the Beta accent 
gives "Impossible." And then at Delta, (Q 208, 
H 4), the place of things "eternal and momentary 
— durable and transitory," he gives the eternal 
cry of the bereaved, "/ cannot but remember 
such things were That were most precious to me." 
He then asks the question that reaches Epsilon: 
"Did heaven look on, and would not take their 
part?" Here, at Epsilon, he says, "Not for their 
own demerits but for mine Fell slaughter on their 
souls." And then straight out he speaks, here 
at that Epsilon where the murder had been 
planned and done, "But gentle Heaven, Cut 
short all intermission: Front to Front, Bring thou 
this Fiend of Scotland, and myself." 

The famous sleep-walking scene is begun at 
Zeta, (Q 210, H 6, "last walked?"). Here, at 

146 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

the place of sleep, the physician considers the 
case, mentions "the benefits of sleep^' and 
"the effects of watching." One should note the 
special shading of the Folio punctuation, so 
delicate as to give the very tones of the good 
Doctor. Surely all of us have heard him speak 
with this professional composure and clearness. 
Rest the voice at each mark! 

"In this slumbery agitation, besides her walk- 
ing, and other actual performance, what (at any 
time) have you heard her say?" This in itself 
might be set forth as proof that the living author 
watched the printing of the Folio. 

Lady Macbeth enters with her taper at Tau 
(Q 211, H 7, "say.'*"), exactly at the place at which 
she first entered the play reading her letter. 
She is still of the earth, earthy. She comes now 
with the results of that letter seething in her 
brain, "and upon my life fast asleep." 

At Upsilon, Q 212, H 8, the Doctor asks, "How 
came she by that light .^" This is the twilight 
hour, at which lights are often mentioned. Now 
the two watchers observe what she seems to be 
doing. This is at the place of the Water. What 
she does puzzles the Doctor. He asks the Gentle- 
woman what it is, the count so going on to Phi. 
The woman answers, "It is an accustomed action 
with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have 
known her continue in this a quarter of an hour." 
Phi 9 is at the quarter of an hour, right here on 
the Dial. 

147 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Now, at Phi, the lady speaks, "Yet here's a 
spot." Oh, poor Lady Macbeth! It was at this 
place, this near approach to the Broad Gate, that 
she had said so short a time ago, so coolly, to her 
husband, "Go get some water, and wash this 
filthy Witness from your hands." From this 
moment one pities her with the deep pity due the 
contrite in heart. 

And here at the Broad Gate she goes on speak- 
ing, "Out damned spot: One-Two- Why then 'tis 
time to do 't. . . . Hell is murky." At Chi 
she asks, "A Soldier, and afeard?" here where she 
had goaded Macbeth to kill. At Psi she asks, 
"What need we fear.'' who knows it, when none 
can call our power to account.^" But at the 
Celestial placement, though none on earth may 
"know" or call to account, there waits the triumph 
of justice and of mercy, to decide the strength of 
her power and summon her to account. In the 
same temper Shylock asks, at Psi, "On what com- 
pulsion" must he think of mercy. 

At Q 218, H 2, just where her husband had 
exclaimed, "Will all great Neptune's Ocean," and 
she had said, "My Hands are of your color," 
Lady Macbeth cries out now in her sleep, "What 
will these hands ne'er be clean?" She recalls 
words that she may have said to her husband at 
the banquet, at Beta, when Macbeth refused to 
sit down — and once again, at Beta, repeats what 
we did not hear before, "No more o' that, my 
Lord . . . you mar all with this starting." 

148 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

And, still at Beta, where all great Neptune's 
Ocean could not cleanse, she gives her agonizing 
moan, "Here's the smell of the blood still: all the 
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little 
hand." 

The Doctor is touched: "What a sigh is 
there?" And with this gentle intonation (Q 219, 
H 3) he takes the count to Gamma, where Lady 
Macbeth had on that other dreadful night en- 
deavored to lead her husband to a place of safety. 
She repeats to us now at the East Gate what went 
on before that we did not hear, "Wash your hands 
. . . look not so pale." And, "I tell you yet 
again Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's 
grave." 

And again the Doctor murmurs; "Even so.?" 
And thus he takes the count upon Delta, the place 
of the Eternal goodness. Lady Macbeth is crying 
out, "What's done cannot be undone. To bed, 
to bed." And here the Folio says only, "Exit 
lady." 

At Epsilon (Q 221, H 5, "to bed?") the Doctor 
speaks of "Foul whisperings," of "unnatural 
deeds." And, almost as if he were looking after 
the lady through the door toward Delta, the good 
Doctor says quietly, "More needs she the Divine 
than the Physician. God, God forgive us all. 
Look after her. Remove from her the means of 
all annoyance. And still keep eyes upon her. 
So good night." 

By the force of the inner cipher at least we are 
149 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

besought to feel human charity for Lady Macbeth. 
I wish to place beside this cipher significance an 
extract taken from the Charge given by Sir 
Francis Bacon in the case against Frances, 
Countess of Somerset, brought to trial in 1616 for 
close connection with the murder of Sir Thomas 
Overbury in 1613 (Montagu, Life of Bacon ^ Vol. 
II> page 319): 

"It may please your Grace, my Lord High 
Steward of England, and you, my Lords, the 
Peers: I am very glad to hear this unfortunate 
lady doth take this course, to confess fully and 
freely, and thereby to give glory to God and to 
justice. It is, as I may term it, the nobleness of 
an offender to confess: and, therefore, those 
meaner persons, upon whom justice passed be- 
fore, confessed not; she doth. I know your lord- 
ships cannot behold her without compassion; 
many things may move you, her youth, her person, 
her sex, her noble family; yea, her provocations, if 
I should enter into the cause itself, and furies 
about her; but chiefly her penitence and con- 
fession." The same heart that could thus speak 
of the Countess of Somerset, could so write of 
Lady Macbeth. The legal training and keen 
ambitions of Lord Bacon had not rendered him 
incapable of feeling the great ranges of human 
emotion. 

Macbeth is at the eleventh hour, and the 
eleventh month (Q 227, H 11, "Whey-face?") 
when he says, "I have lived long enough: my 

150 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

way of life Is fallen into the Sear, the yellow 
Leaf." This is November, the month when 
the sere and yellow leaves have fallen thick. 
At Q 234, H 6 ("before us.?") Malcolm tells the 
Soldiers to hew down boughs from the wood. 
This is the same wood or forest in which Jaques 
relates his tale of the Fool; it is the orchard, and 
the garden, also. 

At Tau (Q 235, H 7,) Macbeth asks "What is 
that noise?" It is the sound of the weeping of 
women at the death of Lady Macbeth. She 
dies, as she had entered, at the place of "dust to 
dust." And Macbeth says (again that reference 
to Life's Feast at Tau), "I have supped fuU with 
horrors." 

At Upsilon, where the Doctor had noticed the 
lady's lighted taper, Macbeth reflects, "And all 
our yesterdays have lighted Fools The way to 
dusty deaths It is as if he himself had seen his 
wife, groping with the candle through the dark. 
"Out, out, brief Candle. Life's but a walking 
Shadow, a poor Player, That struts and frets his 
hour upon the Stage, And then is heard no more." 

At Upsilon Macbeth is told that the trees are 
moving toward him "within this three mile." 
They were cut at Zeta — well within the three- 
mile limit. 

In the last scene, at Q 238, H 10, ("thy name?"), 
Macbeth takes his stand for the last time at the 
Broad Gate. Young Seyward says that he will 
not be afraid to hear Macbeth's name, "though 

151 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

thou callest thyself a hotter name Than any is 
in hell." Then says the man so long familiar with 
this place of Fire, "My name's Macbeth." And 
the other returns, "The devil himself could not 
pronounce a Title More hateful to mine ear." 

It is here, at Chi, that Macduff, sure of his own 
triumph at Psi, the place of heavenly victory, 
would drive his enemy back into the flames of Chi 
with his defiant order, "Turn Hell-hound, turn," 
said at Psi (Q 239, H 11, "sword?"). 

But there is no long delay. Macbeth learns 
his helplessness before his enemy, and here, at 
Psi, cries out, "Lay on Macduff, and damned be 
him that first cries hold, enough." The Broad 
Gates open for Macbeth at last. He is beaten 
back, and to be beaten back is to reach the 
Broad Gate behind him, waiting there at Chi. 

But the great dramatist could not leave the 
theme that way. Out of discord must come at 
last some concord. Psi-Alpha-Omega unite to 
give the one clear note. At Q 239, H 1 1 ("sword ?") 
they speak of another and an unlike death. Sey- 
ton's son had only lived "but till he was a man, 
. . . But like a man he died." . . . "Your 
cause of sorrow Must not be measured by his 
worth, for then it hath no end." (Q 240, H 12, 
"dead.?") 

And then the father asks, "Had he his hurts 
before?" This is the Alpha question (Q 241, Hi). 
And the answer comes, "Ay, on the front." 
"Why then God's soldier be he," And presently 

152 



THE CIPHER IN MACBETH 

Malcolm exclaims, "He's worth more sorrow." 
But the father says again, "He's worth no more. 
They say he parted well, and paid his score. 
And so God be with him." Omega^ but Alpha, 
Then comes the "Hail King of Scotland" at 
the Coronation placement on the Dial of Francis, 
Lord Bacon. 



153 



CHAPTER VIII 
BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

The word "Blazon" as a general name for all 
forms of Baconian signatures in the Folio was 
suggested by the use of the word itself in Merry 
Wives, at Q 357, H 9, ("Bede?") ''Search Windsor 

Castle Chairs of Order . . . 

Each fair Instalment, Coat, and several Crest, 
With loyal Blazon, evermore be blest. And 
Nightly -meadow-Fairies, look you sing Like to 
a Garter s-Compass, in a ring" The "Maze," 
or labyrinth-like form of the Dial section in 
which a Blazon or device forms, is a word found 
used in Midsummer, (Q 26, H 1, "Atiopa?"), 
"The quaint Mazes in the wanton green. For lack 
of tread are indistinguishable." The "tread" of a 
pencil point may be said to make these "Mazes" 
plain once more. 

Tempest is so full of cipher revelations that 
it seems to have been written partly as an allegory 
of the cipher, and to have been set first in the 
Folio on purpose to furnish a clue to decipherers. 
For instance, the ^^Banket" brought in by the 
"strange shapes" is an allegorical explanation of 
the "Inquisitions" or Question-marks, those 
fanciful beings who dance silently, with beckon- 
ing motions, but who have no tongues to speak; 

154 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

who have "gentle actions of salutation;" who look 
like Unicorns, with one curved horn in the center 
of the head; or who remind one of a tree, or of a 
Phoenix rising up — what else are they, after one 
has studied the text and the Dial, but the line of 
the Q's— the ??????????????? "I cannot too 
much muse, Such shapes, such gestures^ — . . . 
a kind of excellent dumb discoursed Truly so — 
?????????? 

The reference to the Phoenix is at Delta, 
and the words, "at this hour reigning there" 
do convey accurately the mission of the 
? or Q, governing every Hour group as it passes, 
and at this Hour at Delta. The Question itself 
is symbolically like the Phoenix, for it is that 
which eternally rises afresh and governs all 
progress on the face of Time. 

The Maze drawings are suggested in many 
places of the text. When in Tempest it is ordered 
"Hang on them this line," it is not a printer's 
error, but a definite attempt to call attention to 
the lines hung on the letters to produce the Dial 
signatures. 

One of the most widely accredited of the visible 
Bacon acrostics in the text is at Q 9, H 9 
("cold?") in Tempest. "B — egun to tell me what 
I am, but stopped A — nd left me to a bootless 
Inquisition, Con — eluding, stay, not yet." In- 
quisition is well placed at the Q-Key line, and the 
F and A of the Bacon signature letters begin 
at 9. Speech count sets this at point 35, at the 

155 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Bacon signature at Alpha, and when Prospero 
says, "The hour's now come," he speaks at point 
^6, the last moment of Omega, and that at which 
a striking of the clock in the Folio directions often 
announces the new hour at Alpha i. 

Sir Nicholas Bacon is said to have made the 
jest that "Hog is not Bacon until it be hanged." 
The Bacon Boar — with the Stars on its back, and 
the Half-Moon also — on the cover is one of the 
attractions of the old Montagu edition of Bacon. 
Hang-Hog is used to tally with the Dial at the 
Bacon cube of nine letters. 

That other well-known place, in Merry Wives, 
long believed by Baconians to be a genuine 
Bacon signature set in the Folio, in which the 
Welsh schoolmaster quotes his pupil's Latin and 
gives it a Welsh twist — "I pray you have your 
remembrance (child) .... hing, hang, hog," is set 
at Q 274, H 10, ("your Accusative case.?"). Here 
Dame Quickly, oddly written Qu, and suggesting 
a Question herself, makes the complacent remark, 
"Hang-hog is Latin for Bacon, I warrant you." 
She is at the place of the Bacon signature at Chi, 
where the name is spelled. 

It is a simple matter to find these nine letters 
of the Blazon and mark them with a pencil tip, 
to see them fall into place. But the Maze draw- 
ings are often far more elaborate than this. 
Here, the schoolmaster himself used the word 
"Mark" that is often a hint to look for a Blazon 
on the Dial. Other words used are often to be 

i;6 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

taken as hints to "draw," and there are probably 
many such undiscovered Maze pictures or Blazons 
waiting to be traced. "Draw," "Counterfeit," 
"Picture," and "Point" are sometimes used, and 
once at least there is a distinctly amused, "Draw 
you Rascal," aimed at the future unknown de- 
cipherer! 

Capitals in the text often tally on the Dial 
near such an indicating word, and the result of 
drawing lines between the letters, in the order of 
their use in the text, and as they are found 
duplicated on the Dial-chart, results in Maze 
designs, or pictures. 

These designs sometimes illustrate the text, as 
in the case of the ^' Plain Fish'* and the ^'Broken 
Bowstring', {Fig. 4 and Fig. j.) They serve to 
call attention to the Bacon letters, and sometimes 
suggest Bacon signatures. The "Plain Fish" shows 
the W. S., It is, and F Bac, and the Dial itself 
provides the other letters. The letters I and P, 
often brought in with effort, it seems, may stand 
for 'Tn Praesentia Dominorum" — a term cor- 
responding to "Adsum" and used before the 
Lords of Session. The D is often used with it. 

The Maze pictures sometimes form pictures of a 
Jewel, perhaps signifying a signet ring. Many 
references to Jewels, Diamonds, and Rings occur 
at the Alpha Blazon. Bacon had at least one 
diamond that he took care to mention in an 
inventory — and certainly the signet ring idea is 
not improbable in itself. 

157 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Sometimes the Blazons form only radiating 
lines, much resembling the shaken spears of the 
"Surrender at Breda" and pointing to Bacon 
letters. By this use of a pencil, many useless 
letters in the text are eliminated, and the Dial 
shows only those needed, where they are needed. 

It is to be noticed that the circles of the Dial 
lend a slight air of perspective to the Maze draw- 
ings, so that the Jewel, in its setting of upright 
lines, becomes a curved stone, not a flat hexagon. 
Also, there could be no Jewel drawn at all unless 
the letters stepped up at Alpha i, since the S 
must be above the R to form it. Thus no chart 
but one built like the Dial is capable of duplicat- 
ing the Jewel in the text. One of the best of these 
Jewels is made from the Capitals in the Epilogue 
of Tempest, {Fig. 12). Passages that bristle with 
capitals, and short italicized portions, as well as 
songs, are places at which it is wise to look for 
some word indicative of drawings. 

The word or name. Bacon, is used only four 
times in the Folio, though hog and pig and boar 
and pork abound on. the pages. Each of these four 
times it is carefully worked into the play, and 
tallied with a place on the Dial at which the Bacon 
signature letters are to be seen, at Alpha, Zeta, 
and Chi. At Zeta the Fr. belonging with it is in 
Epsilon, and at Chi the same Fr. is in Phi, while 
at Alpha the initials in Hne 1 are F. B. and suffice. 
All this is tallied as if by elaborate consideration 
in the use of the word Bacon in the text. 

158 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

At Alpha, in / Henry IV, at Q 49, H i, 
("Tench?"), it is said, "I have a Gammon of 
Bacon, and two razes of Ginger, to be delivered 
at Charing Cross." The Cross is usually set at 
the top of the Dial, or at one of the points 1 2 or 24, 
that correspond to it on the round of twelve hours. 

At Phi, Q 69, H 9, ("disguises?"), in the same 
play, is the expression, "Bacon-fed Knaves." 
As if to establish completely the identity of the 
reference, at the next Q (Q 70, H 10, "undone?") 
comes the order, "On Bacons, on." This is at the 
Hour where the Bacon symbol, the "Beacon" or 
Torch, is suggested by the Fire, and the reference 
itself partakes of the character of a charge or 
sally led by a Torch-bearer — "On, Bacons!" Q 71, 
H II, is the Q itself, thus carrying the name to 
Alpha. 

The mention of Bacon at Hour Chi, which 
contains point 29, is also linked to the Alpha signa- 
ture, by the fact that the Speech count at the 
Alpha reference is at point 29, as if directing at- 
tention to the other signature. 

The Bacon signature letters at Zeta, with the 
beginning at Epsilon, are provided for by the fact 
that the Speech count at "Bacon-fed Knaves" is 
at point 15, and at "On Bacons, on" is at point 17, 
the exact placement of the Bacon cube of four 
letters being thus marked. 

These three occurrences of the name Bacon in 
Henry IV have the more significance because the 
play itself professes to unfold some message from 

159 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

a "Secret Book." The reference to Bacon in 
Merry Wives tallies at Hour lo, already noted, 
and the Speech point indicates the Zeta signature, 
for it is at point 13, the Keyline of Epsilon-Zeta, 
Thus "Latin for Bacon" joins the other three 
references in establishing a circling of the Dial by 
the Bacon letters. 

The "Secret Book" in / Henry IV is mentioned 
at Q 44, H 8 ("underwent?") "And now I will 
unclasp a Secret Book . . . I'll read you Matter, 
deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventur- 
ous Spirit, As to o'er walk a Current, roaring loud. 
On the uncertain footing of a Spear." At the 
same place come the words, "Send danger from 
the East into the West, So Honor cross it from the 
North to South, And let them grapple.'* The 
play itself opens with the words "So shaken as we 
are." Honor and Danger may be seen spelled at 
the North-South and East-West points on the 
Dial. The cipher word '' Honorificabilitudinitati- 
bus" is at Q 183, H 3 in Love's Labor's Lost^ and 
point 17, the extended diameters crossing on the 
Dial. 

Baconians have long thought the phrase "shake 
a lance at ignorance," was a hint of the origin of 
the pen-name "Shake-speare." The clock pointer 
gives the effect of a spear, tipped with the Q. 
In imagination this Dial pointer moves, being 
"jarred" (the accepted Shakespeare word for the 
movement of the hands around the clock face) 
or "shaken" as it makes the trip. On the Dial 

160 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

also the compass lines meet or "grapple" in the 
center. On such a "spear", as it crossed the cur- 
rent of the years, Bacon may have hoped to walk 
with his fame across to future ages. 

Certainly by the aid of these "spears" of the Dial 
he did bring the name Francis safely along the 
years to join at last with the name Bacon, tally- 
ing with it at exactly the same signature Hours 
on the Dial. 

The signature at Zeta is tallied by the name 
Francis nine times on Hour count. These tallies 
are "Francis Seacole" in Much Ado^ at Q 162, H 6, 
("ah?"); "Friar Francis" in the same play, and at 
the same Q and Hour; "Tom, Dick, and Francis" 
in / Henry IV, at Q 102, H 6 ("Hal?"); "Never 
leave calling Francis," in the same play, and at 
the same Q and Hour: then come three repetitions 
of the name "Francis" at this same Hour 6 and 
Q 102. The same Q 102, and Hour 6, is struck in 
Romeo and Juliet with the question itself, "Holy 
St. Francis, what a change is hers?" and in the 
same play, at Q 354, H 6, ("stumbled at graves?") 
"Saint Francis be my speed." 

Hour 5, Epsilon, so closely connected with the 
Bacon signature at Zeta, has the name brought 
to it once, "And Francis Quoint," in Richard II, 
Q 53, H 5, (of this?"). 

The Alpha signature is tallied by "Francis 
Flute" in Midsummer at Q 13, H i, ("tyrant?"). 
This Francis Flute has a personality. He is the 
actor who objects to playing the part of Thisby, 

" . 161 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

and is told, "That's all one, you shall play it in a 
Mask." And thus, being in a Mask, he goes 
entirely through the play, his identity so well 
concealed that few who read the play could give 
his name as Francis Flute. Yet never again does 
Francis speak as Francis throughout the whole 
play. He is consistently the man in the Mask, 
and that one who felt humiliated at being forced 
to act out of his own character. 

The same Alpha-Omega signature is reached 
by the name "Francis" in 2 Henry IV, at Q 192, 
H 12, ("kirtle of.?"), where the supposed Francis, 
the Prince in disguise, makes answer "Anon, 
anon, Sir," a reminiscence of the episode of 
Francis and his Anon in / Henry IV, where the 
question "Anon, Francis?" is asked at the top of 
the clock by the Prince himself, Q 107, H 11. 
However, at the top of the Dial Francis is not 
"Anon." This is the story told in / Henry IV, 
about the trick played by the Prince and Poines 
in order to hear the young lad Francis, the 
"drawer" at the inn, repeat his stereotyped answer 
"Anon, anon, sir!" In the scene, covering about 
a column and a half of Folio page, the name 
Francis is brought into the text itself just 22 times. 
This gives a page on which the name fairly starts 
out at the reader, and the effect is "enhanced by 
the fact that Francis himself speaks 14 times, 
thus bringing the whole number of times the name 
is seen on the page to 2Si with the first use of the 
name on the preceding page making the total 2^: 

162 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

the exact round of the Dial of compass points, if 
one attaches any importance to the number as a 
cipher hint. 

This scene of Francis Anon opens at Zeta, 
already noted, / Henry IV, Q 102, H 6. Francis 
enters and makes his expected reply, "Anon, 
anon, sir." The Speech count sets him at his 
own line, F, at point 14, when he is called by 
name for the first time. 

Asked if he is valiant enough to run away, he 
returns that he will be "sworn upon all the 
Books in England" that he could find "in his 
heart." This is at Q 104, H 8, ("from it?") 
and at the same place where the "Secret Book" 
was first mentioned in the play. 

Asked "How old art thou Francis?" at Q 105, 
H 9, he replies, "Let me see, about Michaelmas 
next I shall be — " and stops, hesitating. Hour 9 
is, by the count of the twelve months on the Dial 
round, at September. Michaelmas day is Sept. 29 
now, and was Sept. 18 then. At point 26, the 
middle line with the FR on it, Francis' name is 
again spoken. 

Asked what the Prince owes for sugar, Francis 
is placed at Q 106, H 10, ("hark you Francis . . . 
a pennyworth, was't not?"). At point 28, the 
B point of the Bacon letters at Chi, he is called, 
"Francis." He answers, "Anon sir, pray you 
stay a little, my Lord," a speech that might 
easily read, "Francis B — Bacon — Anonymous^ — 
My Lord Bacon." This is the place at which the 

163 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

"Latin for Bacon" brought the name Bacon to 
wait here for the Francis Anon. 

At Q 107, H II, the Prince raises the question 
directly, "Anon Francis? No Francis, but to- 
morrow Francis: or Francis, on Thursday; in- 
deed Francis when thou wilt. But Francis.'" 
H 12 is Thursday on the round of days of the 
week: and ^'' tomorrow" is in fact ^^ Thursday" 
The Speech point sets the call "Francis," just 
before this, at point it'i^ the reply of the lad at 
point 34, the Bacon Hne, with "Anon, anon," 
and this comment of the Prince's at point 2>S' 
That is, Francis has declared himself Anon or 
Anonymous at point 34, and the Prince at the 
line containing the I of the Bacon cube at Alpha 
retorts "Anon Francis? No Francis — " The 
last two words of his reply are ^^But Francis" 
thus bringing the B and F to the signature cube; 
and indeed at this same Q all the letters of the 
Bacon name are brought forward by capitals in 
the text. The words themselves are a strange lot, 
clearly a jumble and for one purpose — "Wilt 
thou rob this Leathern Jerkin, Crystal button, 
Not-pated, Agate ring," etc. "O Lord sir who 
do you mean?" asks the amazed Francis at the 
direct Q 108, H 12. 

Again the F and B are brought in — "brown 
Bastard," "look you Francis" "white Canvas 
doublet"— "In Barbary sir." Q^ 109, H i, is 
Frands' own inquiry, "What sir?" answered 
again by the name, thus set again at the top of 

164 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

the Dial, "Francis." The R often used by Lord 
Bacon in the signature "Fr. Bacon" is carefully- 
added in the next speech, at the same hour, by the 
order "Away you Rogue." Lord Bacon is on 
record as signing his name both "Fr. Bacon" and 
"Fra. Bacon," among several other styles. He was 
knighted by King James in 1603. 

Here at the top of the Dial, in the place of the 
Bacon letters, comes the Folio direction in italics, 
"Here they both call him, the Drawer stands 
amazed not knowing which way to go." The 
letters of this traced through the Maze at Alpha- 
Omega provide a Maze picture in which the 
Bacon Blazon is seen displayed, {Fig. 8.) The 
words of significance already brought by the 
text-tally to this place on the Dial are set with 
the letters of the Jewel. It is in truth the Diamond 
or signet ring of Lord Bacon. Quite clearly 
Francis Bacon on the Dial answers his own 
query — "Who do you mean? "O, Lord Bacon, — 
Sir Francis Bacon!" (Figs. 8, 9.) 

At Q 1 14, H 6, once more at the Zeta signature, 
where the story opened, comes the inquiry, 
"What cunning match have you made with this 
jest of the Drawer?" More than one, evidently. 
At once follows Q 115, H 7, "Come, what's the 
issue?" The Prince replies by saying he is in the 
"best of all humors since the days of old goodman 
Adam" (another good place for Adam here at 
Tau, the Earth,) "up to this present twelve 
oclock at midnight. What's a clock Francis?" 

165 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

This takes the count to Q 1 16, H 8, the place where 
the "Secret Book" was first mentioned, and at that 
Upsilon which is in harmony with twelve at the 
top of the Dial. But the Speech count stands at 
point 1 2 also, the point often used for a pun upon 
twelves. Here ends the story of Francis Anon, 
Anonymous for Francis Bacon. 

A reference to student life is made at Q 235, 
H 7, "he is at Oxford still, is he not?" The com- 
ment "He must then to the Inns of the Court" 
is set at Speech point i, Oxford being at both 
top and bottom of the Dial, at point 25 ^^Iso. At 
point 3, talking of nicknames, one speaker says, 
"I was called anything, and I would have done 
anything indeed too — . . . There was I, and 
little John Doit . . . and Francis Pick-bone 
etc." At point 5 he speaks of the fight he had 
with one "Sampson Stockfish, A Fruiterer, behind 
Gray's Inn." Q 236, H 8. Here that abode of 
young lawyers, Gray's Inn, is brought to the 
place of a Bacon Blazon, and young Francis ap- 
pears with a ludicrous nickname that really might 
have been the delight of a lad named Bacon. 

Remaining uses of the word, as given by 
Bartlett's Concordance, are "The door there, 
Francis?" in 2 Henry IV, at Q 213, H 9, and 
"At the Saint Francis here beside the Port," 
in AlFs Well, Hour 9, Q 117, ("you?"), where the 
place of the Gate is reached twice; here at Phi 
may be seen the FR, and the ST is within the 
first points that spell the Gate — really beside it. 

166 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

But in the mention of Saint Francis beside the 
Port, the point count strikes also the Gate at 
Gamma, directly across the Dial, with point 9, 
and there in truth the Saint is spelled in full, 
being established at the Gate, as is the F of Francis. 

At the same place. Gamma, in 2 Henry IV ^ 
verification is again made, with the name "Fran- 
cis Feeble," (Q 267, H 3, "Sir John?") and the 
Speech point leads to point 23, again calling the 
notice to the "Secret Book." 

Now I submit that if any clergyman of today, 
his name being Cuthbert Colby, were to write a 
little classic on the subject of the institutional 
church in its relation to athletics, a classic des- 
tined to live, yet antagonistic to some well- 
wishing parishioners, and were to select the pen 
name William Ball Basket under which to express 
his strongly held views, and were to embody 
within that classic in about three or four pages of 
ordinary printing the fictitious city of Cuthberts- 
ville, the academy of St. Cuthbert's, and a hero 
known as "Uncouth Bert," with from twenty- 
two to thirty-six repetitions of the name Cuthbert 
itself, there might be reason for a few intimate 
friends to suspect the identity of "Billy Basket." 

If besides this he dragged in references through 
the book to "coal by the sea" and "by cold" 
and "coal by me", to eyes "black as coal" and 
to "cold slaw", to gems derived from coal in 
cold countries and to coaling stations in the cold 
sea, not to mention coals of fire in the Scriptural 

167 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

sense, the thing would in our day be grotesque, 
but it would prove sufficiently the most amused 
authorship of Cuthbert Colby, since no other 
human being except Cuthbert Colby would ever 
so concern himself with making puns about his 
own name. 

Exactly so does Francis Bacon, laughing often 
to himself as he does it, bring in, besides these 
many close tallies of his name on the Dial, a 
number of references to "Francisco", "Franklin", 
"Frank Nature", "Enfranchised", "Hang-hog", 
etc. He might easily feel that it required some 
audacity to do it. 

He even makes comment on the trick itself. 
In Richard II, at Q 37, H i, at the Alpha place- 
ment so often assigned to personal things of his 
own. Bacon has the dying old man, John of 
Gaunt, exclaim, "Oh how that name befits my 
composition — Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in 
being old: . . . For sleeping England long 
time have I watched, Watching breeds leanness, 
leanness is all gaunt. . . . Gaunt am I for the 
grave, gaunt as a grave." Richard says, "Can 
sick men play so nicely with their names.''" 
Gaunt answers, "No, misery makes sport to 
mock itself: Since thou dost seek to kill my name 
in me, I mock my name — " 

The question asked Petruchio in Taming, 
"Hath any man rebused your worship?" is not 
using the word "rebus" in place of "abused" 
merely as a mistake to rouse a laugh at the 

168 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

servant. It is a form of hinting at the Maze 
picture or Blazon to be drawn here, since a 
"rebus" and a Maze picture are not totally 
unlike, and one may suggest the other. This is 
Q 48, H 12. The spectators of the play within the 
play are brought into the tale just before this, and 
one says, "Tis a very excellent piece of work . . . 
would Twere done." Here the Folio directions 
insert, "They sit and mark." At this point the 
decipherer also must "sit and mark." 

A little later, at Q 54, H 6, ("fray.?") an ital- 
icized greeting in Italian reads thus: "Alia nostra 
casa bene veneto multo honorato signi — " Here 
it stops, at the end of the line. The next line 
concludes it, "Or mio Petruchio." The inter- 
rupted word is "signior." Read deliberately as it 
stands on the page the line says this, "To — or of — 
our house much honored sign, I." Concluded it 
reads, "or my Petruchio." The Q's now mount 
up along the Dial, and precisely at Alpha again, 
with Q 60, H 12, ("old Verona?") where the 
rebus stands, Petruchio exclaims, in telling his 
tale, "And I have thrust myself into this maze." 
Here the capitals bring in the Bacon letters, and 
the lines may be seen radiating outward from the 
"I" in a "rebus" or Maze picture or Blazon. 

The word used as an adjective, "Conlord hat 
and cloak," in Taming at Q 38, H 2 ("banquet 
them?") is not "colored hat" as it is so tamely 
rendered in modern editions — imagine any spirited 

169 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

youth, about to change hats with another, re- 
marking, "Take my colored hat!" It is here, 
at least, made up from the "Con" at the Blazon 
and tagged to Lord at the Blazon, but it has a 
sound of reality, much like "Paisley shawl," or 
"over-seas cap" in these days, and as a dis- 
tinguishing part of a costume might be men- 
tioned. 

When Malvolio in Twelfth Night puzzles over 
the riddle in his letter, he also gives plain hints of 
the Bacon letters on the Dial, and suggests to the 
play reader an under-riddle in the text itself. 

At Q 131, H II, ("here?") Malvolio recognizes 
the C's, U's, T's and P's of his lady's hand- 
writing and says, "It is in contempt of question 
her hand." The Question is indeed disregarded, 
for at Hour 1 1 there are not these four letters to 
be tallied by the Q's. However, the next speaker 
asks the Q that strikes Hour 12, in which all four 
of these letters are seen: "Her C's, her U's, and 
her T's: why that?" The "Why" is answered on 
the Dial, as he asks it. 

Malvolio's question, "To whom should this 
be?" is at Hour i, Q 133. Now he asks "What fol- 
lows?'* and seems to note, here at Q 134, H 2, that 
he is not at 37, Hour 14, as might have been 
expected from his having been recently at Hour 
12, but is at line 4, Beta. He comments, 
"The numbers altered." Then he asks Q 135, H 3, 
"If this should be thee, Malvolio?" and proceeds 
to read "M. O. A. I. doth sway my Hfe." Here 

170 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

at Gamma, as at Alpha, at the top of the Dial, 
are the letters M O A I. 

At Q 137, H 5 ("checks at it?") Malvolio muses, 
"What should that Alphabetical position portend, 
if I could make that resemble something in me? 
Softly, M. O. A. I." He considers: "M. why 
that begins my name." Notice on the Dial at 
Epsilon, in its last point, the M of the Bacon 
"I AM Bacon." Then Malvolio, evidently 
studying the Dial, with its O coming in line 17, 
continues thus; "There is no consonancy in the 
sequel that suffers under probation: A should 
follow, but O, does." He is told, "O shall end, 
I hope". Note that O does end the line itself, the 
Bacon cube of letters, also. Malvolio accepts this, 
adding, "And then I comes behind." Verily the 
I does come behind the O, upon the Dial. 

Malvolio says "this simulation is not as the 
former." It is unlike the former letters at Gamma; 
for here it is linked with the Bacon cube, there 
it was not. The long speech here is filled with 
Dial hints — "In my stars I am above thee:" 
"Be opposite with a kinsman," "point device." 
The "cross-gartering" itself is no more than one 
of many hints in the Folio to use the "Bias" of 
the Dial, and to "cross" it, for the second veri- 
fication often thus brought in by the Speech count. 
It is also connected with more intricate meanings 
of a cipher alphabet. 

Here the hint to see things that are "cross-ed," 
recalls the "Garter's compass," and the "mine 

171 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Host" of the "Garter", where "Garter" is a 
symbol of the round Dial. The result of "cross- 
gartering" or "cross-Dial"-ing here is evident 
when the Speech count is followed. 

By Speech count Malvolio is exactly across the 
Dial from Psi, and at point 14, when he reads the 
letters C, U, T, and P. The next speaker, who 
repeats the letters, takes the count to the first 
line of the Bacon cube, that point at which 
Malvolio ends the scene with the idea of "cross- 
gartering." At point 18, where the Alphabet of 
Nature changes from Zeta 78 to Tau 67, comes 
Malvolio's comment that the numbers are "al- 
tered," a perfect cross-gartering. At point 26, 
where the Fr. of the Bacon signature at Phi-Chi 
is seen, Malvolio makes the speech about what the 
alphabetical position should portend, and wonders 
if it could be made to resemble something in him, 
again cross-gartered from Gamma, 3, at which 
he said this first. 

At point 2^^ Malvolio repeats the letters, 
"M, O, A, I." These are seen at the Hour Alpha, 
and are the four corners of the Bacon cube, and 
they do "sway" or control the name of Bacon at 
this place. Here it is that the words come again, 
''This simulation is not as th.Q former: . . 
"Every one of these letters are in my name: 
In my stars I am: . . . Some are born great. 
Some achieve greatness, and some have greatness 
thrust upon them; . . . Thy fates open their 
hands; . . . cast thy humble slough, and 

172 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

appear fresh: ... Be opposite: . . . put 
thyself into the trick of singularity. . . . This 
is open: ... I will be point device: . . . 
Thou canst not choose but know who I am." 

On what place except the Dial of Bacon's 
cipher could this be so ''crossed" and tallied, and 
if on Bacon's Dial, by whom but Francis Bacon? 
"Thou canst not choose but know!" 

There are close letter tallies running along by- 
Speech count under much of the exterior proof 
thus far assembled, but it is wise to omit these 
until their story is more fully developed. The 
crossing of the Dial is, however, meant to give 
some hint of the cipher use in this regard. 

As a summing up of the signature verifications, 
one may set beside the proof given in Malvolio's 
riddle, and the phrase at the Bacon letters, 
''Thou canst not choose but know who I am" the 
fact that the "Gammon of Bacon" in / Henry IV 
is quite capable of being read as if it were a 
movement in the game of backgammon, where 
"to gammon" is to make a winning move. The 
combination of both words spelled at Alpha, 
"Gammon" and "Bacon", may be read, if one 
likes, as "Bacon Wins I" 

It is a fair guess that the much discussed mis- 
paging on the last page of the Folio, 993 instead 
of 398, is a y^i^ of the Dial point, 1-33. 

The Maze picture showing the Jewel in / Henry 
IV, made by the tracing of letters, tallied at 
points by the Carriers in the text, is seen in Fig. 8. 

173 



BACON^S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

The names Francis and Bacon, the words Gam- 
mon and "stands amazed" are set where the text 
tallies them. 

But by shading this Jewel in a slightly different 
fashion, the lines make those of the constellation 
"Charles's Wain," as the English call it, which is 
mentioned in the text just before the Carrier 
speaks of the "Gammon." "Charles Wain is over 
the new Chimney," he observes. This Wain, or, 
as we call it, the "Dipper," is set here on the Dial 
in some relation to the North Star, as it should be. 
It is essentially a "pointer" among the constella- 
tions, and perhaps is used both as a hint upon the 
Dial, and as a sign that Francis Bacon also had 
hitched his "wagon to a Star." {Fig. p.) 

In Timon of Athens^ a distinct cipher-carrying 
play, the pages are much occupied with talk of 
Jewels and Pictures and references to Dedica- 
tions and Epitaphs. An allusion to the Maze 
pictures may be made in the comment, "These 
pencilled figures are Even such as they give out," 
and "Thou wilt give thyself away in paper shortly." 
Later the Jewel Blazon is made twice, once in its 
complete form, the other with a lack of capitals 
that leaves only a shape rather like a stone, 
perhaps a key-stone of an arch or vault, or 
monument, or even a plain tablet. Timon, say 
his false friends, is clearly mad, since one day he 
gives them diamonds, "next day stones." {Figs, 

10, II.) 

174 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

The Jewel Blazon carries the letters of Bacon's 
name around and within itself, and on its corners 
bears the first part of the words "Star on Boar," 
the Boar and the Star being Bacon symbols. 
Mention of the Boar is often tallied at the Bacon 
signature letters. 

The Constellation of the Dipper is clearly 
referred to in Ben Jonson's verses in the first 
pages of the Folio. Hints in Timon lead one to 
study this and other introductory material. Ben 
Jonson's poem is long and unwieldy. It has a 
decidedly sly twist, intimating that WiUiam 
Shakespeare will not be helped in the long run by 
the poem Ben is at the moment engaged in 
composing. He is not. For the capitals ingeniously 
brought into the poem trace out on the Dial the 
Maze picture of a Charles's Wain, or Dipper, and 
the poem thus illustrates the very constellation 
it refers to, but on the Dial of Francis Bacon. 
Significant and much quoted lines in this poem 
are these: (Fig. ij.) 

To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy namey 
Am I thus ample to thy Book and Fame: 
While I confess thy writings to be such, 
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much. 

In his wellturned, and true filed lines: 

In each of which, he seems to shake a Lance, 

As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance. 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were 
To see thee in our waters yet appear — 
But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere 
Advanced, and made a constellation there: 
Shine forth thou Star of Poets : 

As a matter of literary curiosity, the lines of this 
poem may be tallied on points of the Dial in order, 
and show a striking result. The second line, 
carrying F and B, falls at the second point in 
Alpha, the place of Being, with its "Am I." 
This is the marked Bacon line, the only one on the 
Dial carrying both F and B. On a third round of 
the Dial points, the words "shake a Lance" are 
set at exactly line ^Z-) ^'^^ the "Swan of Avon" 
is at point ';^i^^ the last line of the Bacon cube of 
letters. This is the Hour to which Francis 
brought the Anon that may stand for Anonymous. 
It is worth recalling that in at least one copy of 
the original Folio itself (a Folio in the Boston 
Public Library) the letter V in Avon is not a 
straight V, but is so made as to be also an N, and 
preferably an N, under a glass. "Swan of Anon" 
would fit admirably right here. 

After moving back to point i as usual, the lines 
speaking about the Hemisphere and the Con- 
stellation come to points 3 and 4, indicating the 
Maze drawing at this very place. 

Another short but more effective poem is signed 
"I. M." It is this: 

176 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

WEE wondred (Shakes-peare) that thou went'st so soone 
From the Worlds-Stage, to the Graves-Tyring-roome. 
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth, 
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went'st but forth 
To enter with applause. An Actors Art, 
Can dye, and live, to act a second part. 
That's but an Exit of Mortalitie; 
This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite. 

I. M. 

The capitals in this verse are few, but they form a 
curtained room, or stage, and in the rear the 
pointed shadow of a grave. The letters of Exit 
and Re-enter, as well as those of F. Bacon, are seen 
enclosed within the little, but sufficient, space. 
The "W. S." is not lacking. Plainly, here it 
says for all to see, "Exit W. S. — Re-enter F. 
Bacon." {Fig. 14.) 

The Epitaph at Shakespeare's grave at Strat- 
ford shows some traces of a Dial linking. It 
reads thus, the large letters being much larger in 
the original form than they appear in this print- 
ing of them: 

Gooa Frend for lefus SAKE forkeare 
TodiGG T-E Duft EncloAIei HE. Re. 
Blefe leTE Man y fpares TEs Stones 
And curl t te He I moves my Bones. 



12 



177 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

On the Dial at the Bacon line of F B, point 2, and 
nowhere else so far as I happen to know, that 
peculiar T-E becomes an established fact. For 
on the Dial, as the Maze pictures many of them 
show, and as the Graves Tyring Room clearly 
shows, with its capitalised WEE, there is often a 
choice to be made between the two E's in tracing 
a line from T to E. If the line North is taken, 
T-E on the Dial is the same thing as T-Y. If the 
line South is drawn, then in literal fact the line 
T-E "spares" the point T-Y. This is only possible 
because of the invisible Omega letters set on the 
Dial. It is in itself an odd thing, but doubly odd 
when duplicated in the expression on the Shake- 
speare Epitaph. Also, on the principle that 
letters themselves might follow a compass round, 
the first T-E in the Epitaph comes by count at 
points ;}6 and i, thus setting the E of the Epitaph 
exactly at the spot on the Dial where T does 
spare it. 

The letters of the Epitaph also construct the 
Bacon Jewel {Fig. 75). It is not wholly im- 
probable that the phrase "spares T-Es Stones" 
may mean also "T-Y-ES pairs the stones", 
meaning that the lines on the Dial are a basis for 
"pairing" the stones or Jewels in play and Epitaph. 
The letters may be so set on the Dial that the 
prominent G G's take their place at Gates, and 
the SAKE is the chief portion of a set of Keys. 

There has been given in this book only a small 
portion of the Dial Droof. But plain evidence of a 

178 



BACON BLAZONS OR SIGNATURES 

visualizing mind at work upon both plays and 
Dial chart has been furnished in the tallying of 
the Gates and Keys, the Time References, the 
Compass Points, and the Literary Allusions of the 
Hours. The Blazons complete this chain of Dial 
proofs. Did Francis Bacon take no trouble to 
prove that he wrote the Shakespeare plays? 
The Compass Dial answers for him, "Thou canst 
nor choose but know." 



NOTE 

Hudson's Twelfth Night is practically correct for the Speech and 
Personal counts. Of course, word changes occur, as "south" for the 
Folio's "sound" at Q 6, H 6, and "Arion" for the Folio's 'Orion," 
which is a Dial spelling at Zeta. The Song "O Mistress Mine" counts 
as two speeches, but the Song "Come Away" is not counted. Note 
the letter tallies about "No question" (No Q), and "Past question" 
(Past Q). The Q 224, H 8 ("opinion?") is the Upsilon reason for the 
clown's saying, "Nay, I am for all waters." 

Hudson's Julius Caesar. In Act III, sc. i ,omit the speech of Casca, 
"Are we all ready?", which in the Foho belongs to Caesar's speech. 
In Act V, sc. 3, the name "Titinius" is omitted, by a misprint, before 
"These tidings." 

Hudson's / Henry IV. In Act I, sc. 2, "Poins! Now shall we 
know," etc., is a part of FalstafFe's speech, but the Folio makes it 
a separate speech, by Poins. In Act II, sc. 2, count out "Bard. 
What news?", which the Folio sets with Poins's speech. "Case ye" 
is said by Bardolfe in the Folio. In Act III, sc. i, "I understand thy 
kisses" is a separate speech of Mortimer's. The next to the last 
speech in the play, by John, is not in the Folio. The word "Bacon" 
is capitalised m the Folio. 

Hudson's Macbeth is correct for Speech and Personal count. 



179 



Guide to the Maze Pictures 

Figs. I and 2. The Gates seen on the Dial. Lines 
traced between the letters of the word "Gate" as 
spelled on the Dial. 

Fig. 3. The Broken Bowstring. 

Text story in Much Ado about Nothings Q 117, H 9 
("madam?") to Q 120, H 12, ("so much?") "Some 
Cupid kills with arrows." "He (Benedick) hath 
twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string." Letters of 
the word "Bow-string" joined in Dial by Hnes, 
showing a bow and string broken, with arrow. 
The word, in this form, here, may have occasioned 
the text. 

Fig. 4. The Plain Fish. 
Text story in Tempest, Q 1 86, H 6, "What things are 
these, my Lord Anthonio"? "Will money buy 'em?" 
"Very like; one of them is a plain Fish, and no doubt 
marketable." "Mark but the badges of these men. 
. . . Then say if they be true." Capitals between 
Q's 186 and 188 joined by lines, resulting in the 
Fish, with Bacon letters and W. S. "It is F. Bacon. 
W. S." 

Fig. 5. The Jewel in Tempest. 
Text story begins at Q 157, H i ("No?") with 
Ariel's entrance. Capitals joined between "Now" 
and "no more". At the break in text where "Juno 
and Iris whisper" it is evident that the Jewel is 
incomplete, there being no words to bring in the 
capitals R and A. Nymphs arrive, and the sickle 

181 













-'f>j' 




Ficf.3 



182 






-/ 







TMr '0/fw^'0^ te^nnssii 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 

men are told to don their "Rye-straw" hats, "And 
these fresh Nymphs encounter." The capitals R 
and A complete the Jewel form. Prospero com- 
ments, just before the new words are brought in, 
"There's something else to do, hush and be mute, 
or else our spell is marred^ The "spell" is saved 
from being marred by the arrival of R and A. 

Fig. 6. The Dipper in Tempest. 

Text story at Q 25, H i (Sea-storm?") "My Zenith 
doth depend upon a most auspicious Star!" Capitals 
joined between "Know" and "trident shake." 
Compare this with the Dipper made from Ben 
Jonson's poem. The passage in Tempest forms the 
"F. Bacon, Hang-hog" signature, the F being in 
line 34, beside the Z of Zenith. Drawing Une T to Y, 
shows letter E not used, but "spared." 

Fig. 7. The Blazon in Taming of the Shrew. 

For text story, see chapter on Blazons, p. 168. Cap- 
itals joined between "They sit and mark" and 
Petruchio's words, "I have thrust myself into this 
maze." 

Fig. 8. The Jewel in / Henry IV. 

For text story, see chapter on Blazons, pp. 165, 173. 
Letters of the italicized sentence, ''Here they both call 
him, the Drawer stands amazed, not knowing which 
way to go" joined by lines, and words added at the 
place at which they tallied on the Dial at this Hour. 

Fig. 9. The Dipper in / Henry IV. 
See chapter on Blazons, pp. 165, 173. 

Fig. 10. The Jewel seen in Timon of Athens. 

Text story at Q 180, H 12 ("hold?"). All the letters 
from the peculiar "Thanks" of Timon. The words 

184 



rut mjkzoM Acoor TAMitts 




Fief. 6 



'--!c-:-if'* 




Fi^.9 



rue aippt/t'/M 1 MeM^yjy 



v--'~:v:-r:*' 




FiflO 



r»s Wiv£t'-3/'£f^i/^r/ii^a^. 



.-^''-"^="v-:5>^': 



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i86 



GUIDE TO THE MAZE PICTURES 



"Banket brought in," preceding this, indicate a 
spelling to be traced, as in other cases. Also, "Will 
you draw near?" gives the hint. 

Fig. II. The Jewel "missing" in Timon oj Athens. 
Q 178, H 10. "Thanks" omitted. Capitals joined 
between, "Will you draw near?" and "next day 
stones" See chapter on Blazons, p. 174. This 
Jewel uses the same number of letters as the Shake- 
speare Epitaph. It does not "pair" with the Jewel 
at the same place in the text, but the Jewel made from 
Shakespeare's Epitaph does "pair" it, with the 
same number of letters as here given. 

Fig. 12. The Dipper in the Epilogue of Tempest. 
Text story in Tempest, being the Epilogue itself. 
All capitals taken and joined by lines. Reads 
"I, W. S. Am F. Bacon." There are so few letters 
to be used that it bears every sign of being specially 
written for this Maze. The words "Let me not . . . 
dwell In this bare Island by your Spcll^ But release 
me from my bands By the help of your good hands" 
give a plain hint to use Dial hands in getting the 
spelling right, so that the signature shall appear. 
The Epilogue ends, "Let your Indulgence set me 
free." Bacon letters are plainly "set free" by the 
spelling on the Dial. 

Fig. 13. Ben Jonson's Dipper. 

See the chapter on Blazons, p. 175. Evidently the 
same idea is used in both Dippers, the shorter one 
in Tempest., set apart by the Epilogue in a marked 
place, giving the clue to this one. The figure is also 
much like a star in the regular radiation of its lines. 
All the capitals in Ben Jonson's poem are used in 
187 










PSI ,^ - _ _ - - .^, - ^^fl^-^ 







-■'^.f'h'A 




Fig.l5 



GUIDE TO THE MAZE PICTURES 

the tracing. Note that line T-Y-E spares the E, 
in line 31 not used. 

Fig. 1 4. The Tyring Room. 
See chapter on Blazons, p. 177. All capitals in the 
short poem beginning, "WEE wondered, Shake- 
speare" at the front of the Folio, among the dedica- 
tory material. The figure illustrates the poem 
itself, which speaks of the Grave's Tyring Room, 
and of "Shakespeare's" entering again from death 
to life upon the stage, an "Exit to Mortality" and a 
"Re-entrance to a Plaudite." It may read, "Exit 
W. S. Re-enter F. Bacon." This could not be 
made on any other diagram except one having the 
step-up of letters from R to S and the circular form 
of the dial lines. 

Fig. 15. The Jewel from Shakespeare's Epitaph. 
Made from the letters in the Epitaph. See chapter 
on Blazons, p. 178. Note that T goes to Y-E, and T 
to E. "J[ spares T-E" upon Bacon's Dial. 
Y 



189 



The Hour Count in Macbeth 



Q I, H I, "meet again?" Q 30, 

Q 2, H 2, "Rain?" Q 31, 

Q3>H3, "place?" Q 32, 

Q 4, H 4, "is that?" Q33, 

Q5,H5,"Banquo?" Q 34, 

Q 6, H 6, "here?" Q 35, 

Q 7, H 7, "eyes?" Q 36, 

Q 8, H 8, "Thane?" Q 37> 

Q 9, H 9, "Sister?" Q 38, 

Q 10, H 10, "where thou ?" Q 39, 

Q II, H II, "to Soris?" Q40, 

Q 12, H 12, "are on't?" Q 41, 

Q 13, H I, "may ques- Q 42, 

tion?" Q43, 

Q 14, H 2, "are you?" Q 44, 

Q 15, H 3, "so fair?" Q 45, 

Q16, H4, "yeshow?" Q 46, 

Q 17, H 5, "Cawdor?" Q 47, 

Q 18, H 6, "greeting?" Q 48, 

Q 19, H 7, "vanished?" Q 49, 

Q 20, H 8, "speak about ?" Q 50, 

Q 21, H 9, "Prisoner?" Q 51, 

Q 22, H 10, "not so?" Q52, 

Q 23, H II, "who's here?" Q 53, 

Q24,H 12, "speak true?" Q 54, 

Q 25, Hi, "Robes?" Q 55, 

Q 26, H 2, "ill?" Q56, 

Q 27, H 3, "Truth?" Q57, 

Q 28, H 4, "good?" Q58, 

Q 29, H 5, "Nature?" Q 59, 

190 



H 6, "Cawdor?" 
H 7, "returned?" 
H 8, "tidings?" 
H 9, "with him?" 
H 10, "goes hence?" 
H II, "Cawdor?" 
H 12, "How now?" 
H I, "Newes?" 
H 2, "chamber?" 
H 3, "forme?" 
H 4, "he has?" 
H 5, "yourself?" 
H 6, "slept since?" 
H 7, "freely?" 
H 8, "in desire?" 
H 9, "Esteem?" 
H 10, "tome?" 
Hi I, "fail?" 
H 12, "We fail?" 
Hi, "Duncan?" 
H 2, "Officers?" 
H 3, "have don't?" 
H 4, "Death?" 
H 5, "Boy?" 
H 6, "who's there?" 
H 7, "at rest?" 
H 8, "my Hand?" 
H 9, "sight?" 
H 10, "Brain?" 
Hi I, "there?" 



THE HOUR COUNT IN MACBETH 



Q 60, H 12, "what hoa?" Q 

Q 61, H I, "Husband?" Q 

Q62, H 2, "noise?" Q 

Q 63, H 3, "speak?" Q 

Q 64, H 4, "When?" Q 

Q65,H 5, "descended?" Q 

Q66,H 6, "Chamber?" Q 

Q 67, H 7, "Amen?" Q 

Q68, H 8, "mean?" Q 

Q 69, H 9, "cried?" Q 

Q7o,H 10, "place?" Q 

Q 71, H II, "knocking?" Q 

Q 72, H 1 2, "appals me ?" Q 

Q 73, Hi, "here?" Q 

Q 74, H 2, "Hand?" Q 

Q 75, H 3, "then?" Q 

Q76, H4, "Belzebub?" Q 

Q77,H5,"Devil'sName?" Q 

Q 78, H 6, "there?" Q 

Q 79, H 7, "are you?" Q 

Q80, H8, "late?" Q 

Q8i,H 9, "provoke?" Q 

Q 82, H 10, "stirring?" Q 

Q83, H II, "Thane?" Q 

Q84,H 12, "today?" Q 

Q 85, H I, "matter?" Q 

Q 86, H 2, "Life?" Q 

Q 87, H 3, "Majesty?" Q 

Q 88, H 4, "Business?" Q 

Q 89, H 5, "House?" Q 

Q90, H6, "House?" Q 

Q 91, H 7, "amiss?" Q 

Q92, H 8, "whom?" Q 

Q 93, H 9, "you so?" Q 

IQI 



94, H 10, "moment?" 

95, H II, "known?" 

96, H 12, "ours?" 

97, H I, "seize us?" 

98, H 2, "you do?" 

99, H 3, "kiss it?" 

100, H 4, "now?" 
loi, H 5, "you not?" 

102, H 6, "deed?" 

103, H 7, "pretend?" 

104, H 8, "body?" 

105, H 9, "Scone?" 

106, H 10, "afternoon?" 

107, Hi I, "ride?" 

108, H 12, "with you?" 

109, H I, "pleasure?" 
no, H 2, "there?" 

1 1 1, H 3, "together?" 

112, H 4, "this go?" 

113, H 5, "ever?" 

114, H 6, "Court?" 

115, H 7, "alone?" 

116, H 8, "done?" 

117, H 9, "with us?" 

118, H 10, "Light?" 

119, Hit, "way?" 

120, Hi2,"dispatched?" 

121, H I, "safe?" 

122, H 2, "Company?" 

123, H 3, "Where?" 

124, H 4, "Highness?" 

125, H 5, "done this?" 

126, H 6, "Lord?" 

127, H 7, "man?" 



BACON'S DIAL IN SHAKESPEARE 



Q 128, H 8, "faces?" Q 

Q 129, H 9, "What?" ^ Q 

Q 130, H 10, "wonder?" Q 

Q 131, H II, "Lord?" Q 

Q 132, H 12, "night?" Q 

Q 133, Hi, "Sir?" Q 

Q 134, H 2, "angerly?" Q 

Q 135, H 3, "you are?" Q 

Q 136, H 4, "Art?" Q 

Q 137, H 5, "Father?" Q 

gi38,H 6, "Macbeth?" Q 

Q 139, H 7, "sleep?" Q 

Q 140, H 8, "done?" Q 

Q 141, H 9, "himself?" Q 

Q 142, H 10, "Macduff?" Q 

Q 143, H II, "Hags?" Q 

Q 144, H 12, "do?" Q 

Q 145, Hi, "thee?" Q 

Q]i46, H 2, "Sovereignty ?" Q 

Q 147, H 3, "Root?" Q 

Q 148, H 4, "Kingdom?" Q 

Qi49,H 5, "Caldron?" Q 

Q 150, H 6, "this?" Q 

Q 151, H 7, "me this?" Q 

Qi52,H 8, "fourth?" Q 

Q 153, H 9, "Doom?" Q 

Q 154, H 10, "yet?" Q 

Q 155, H II, "seventh?" Q 

Q 156, H 12, "What?" Q 

Q 157, Hi, "this so?" Q 

Q 158, H2, "amazedly?" Q 

Q 159, H 3, "they?" Q 

Q160, H4, "Gone?" Q 

Q 161, H 5, "Sisters?" Q 

192 



62, H 6, "you?" 

63, H 7, "came by?" 

64, H 8, "England?" 

65, H 9, "Gentlemen?" 

66, H 10, "Land?" 

67, H II, "Wisdom?" 

68, H 12, "fly?" 

69, H I, "do now?" 

70, H 2, "live?" 

71, H 3, "Flies?" 

72, H 4, "Mother?" 

73, H 5, "Father?" 

74, H 6, "Husband?" 

75, H 7, "Mother?" 

76, H 8, "Traitor?" 

77, H 9, "lie?" 

78, H 10, "them?" 

79, H II, "Father?" 

80, H 12, "talkst?" 

81, Hi, "fly?" 

82, H 2, "harm?" 

83, H 3, "faces?" 

84, H 4, "Husband?" 
85> H 5, "Egg?" 

86, H 6, "Treachery?' 

87, H 7, "Child?" 

88, H 8, "be?" 

89, H 9, "govern?" 

90, H 10, "again?" 

91, H II, "breed?" 

92, H 12, "silent?" 
93> H I J "you?" 

94, H 2, "means?" 

95, H 3; "did?" 



THE HOUR COUNT IN MACBETH 



QI96 


H4, 


"grief?" 


Q219, H3, 


'there?" 


QI97 


H5, 


"Wife?" 


Q 220, H 4, 


'so?" 


QI98 


H6, 


"Children?" 


Q22i,H 5, 


"bed?" 


QI99 


H7, 


'peace?" 


Q 222, H 6, 


"brother?" 


Q 200 


H8, 


'goes't?" 


Q 223, H 7, 


"Malcolm?" 


Q201 


H9, 


'Brest?" 


Q 224, H 8, 


"woman?" 


Q 202, 


H 10, 


"too?" 


Q 225, H 9, 


"Villain?" 


Q203, 


H II, 


"thence?" 


Q 226, H 10, 


"Patch?" 


Q204, 


H 12, 


"too?" 


Q227,Hii,' 


'Whey-face?" 


Q205, 


Hi, 


ones? 


Q 228, H 12, 


"Seytonr" 


Q206, 


H2, 


'All?" 


Q 229, H I, 


'pleasure?" 


Q207, 


H3, 


'All?" 


Q 230, H 2, 


"more?" 


Q208, 


H4, 


'swoop?" 


Q 231, H 3, 


"Doctor?" 


Q209 


H5, 


'part?" 


Q 232, H 4, 


"heart?" 


Q210 


H6, 


"walked?" 


Q ^33, H 5, 


"them?" 


Q211. 


H7, 


'say?" 


Q 234, H 6, 


'us?" 


Q212 


H8, 


"light?" 


Q ^3S, H 7, 


"noise?" 


Q213 


H9, 


"now?" 


Q 236, H 8, 


'cry?" 


Q214 


H 10, 


"afeard?" 


Q 237> H 9, 


'Woman?" 


Q215 


H II, 


"fear?" 


Q 238, H 10, 


"name?" 


Q216 


, H12 


"that?" 


Q239, H II, 


"sword?" 


Q217 


Hi, 


now?" 


Q240, H 12, 


"dead?" 


Q218 


>H2, 


"clean?" 


Q 241, H I, 


'before?" 



193 



Stewart Kidd Dramatic Anthobgies 

Twenty Contemporary One- Act Plays 
American 

Edited by FRANK SHAY 

This volume represents a careful and intelligent selection of the best 
One-act Plays written by Americans and produced by the Little Theatres in 
America during the season of 192 1. They are representative of the best 
work of writers in this field and show the high level to which the art theatre 
has risen in America. 

The editor has brought to his task a love of the theatre and a knowledge 

of what is best through long association with the leading producing groups. 

The volume contains the repertoires of the leading Little Theatres, 

together with bibliographies of published plays and books on the theatre 

issued since January, 1920. 

Aside from its individual importance, the volume, together with Fifty 
Contemporary One-Act Plays, will make up the most important collection of 
short plays published. 

In the Book are 
the Jollowing Plays by the following Authors 

Mirage George M. P. Baird 

Napoleon's Barber Arthur Caesar 

Goat Alley Ernest Howard Culbertson 

Sweet and Twenty Floyd Dell 

Tickless Time Susan Glaspell & George Cram Cook 

The Hero of Santa Maria Kenneth Goodman & Ben Hecht 
All Gummed Up Harry Wagstaff Gribble 

Thompson's Luck Harry Greenwood Grover 

Fata Deorum Carl W. Guske 

Pearl of Dawn Holland Hudson 

Finders-Keepers George Kelly 

Solomon's Song Harry Kemp 

Matinata Lawrence Langner 

The Conflict Clarice Vallette McCauley 

Two Slatterns and a King Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Thursday Evening Christopher Morley 

The Dreamy Kid Eugene O'Neill 

Forbidden Fruit George Jay Smith 

Jezebel Dorothy Stockbridge 

Sir David Wears a Crown Stuart Walker 

i2mo. Silk Cloth, $3.7$. H Turkey Morocco, $10.00. 



Stewart Kidd Dramatic Anthologies 

Fifty Contemporary One- Act Plays 

Edited by 
FRANK SHAY and PIERRE LOVING 



THIS volume contains FIFTY REPRESENTATIVE ONE-ACT PLAYS 
of the MODERN THEATER, chosen from the dramatic works of con- 
temporary writers all over the world and is the second volume in the 
Stewart Kidd Dramatic Anthologies, the first being European Theories of the 
Drama, by Barrett H. Clark, which has been so enthusiastically received. 

The editors have scrupulously sifted countless plays and have selected the 
best available in English. One-half the plays have never before been pub- 
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The work satisfies a long-felt want for a handy collection of the choicest 
plays produced by the art theaters all over the world. It is a complete reper- 
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CONTENTS 



AUSTRIA 

Schnitzler (Arthur) — Literature 
BELGIUM 

Maeterlinck (Maurice) — The Intruder 
BOLIVIA 

More (Federico) — Interlude 
DENMARK 

Wied (Gustave) — Autumn Firea 
FRANCE 

Ancey (George) — M. Lamblin 

Porto- Riche (Georges) — Francoise's Luck 
GERMANY 

Ettinger (Karl) — Altruism 

von Hofmannsthal (Hugo) — Madonna Dia- 
nora 

Wedekind (Frank) — The Tenor 
GREAT BRITAIN 

Bennett (Arnold) — A Good Woman 

Calderon (George) — The Little Stone House 

Cannan ((Gilbert) — Mary's Wedding 

Dowson (Ernest) — The Pierrot of the Min- 
ute 

Ellis (Mrs. Havelock) — The Subjection 
of Kezia 

Hankin (St. John) — The Constant Lover 
INDIA 

Mukerjl (Dhan Gopal) — The Judgment of 
Indra 
IRELAND 

Gregory (Lady) — The Workhouse Ward 
HOLLAND 

Speenhofif (J. H.) — Louise 
HUNGARY 

Biro (Lajos) — The Grandmother 
ITALY 

Giocosa (Giuseppe) — The Rights of the Soul 
RUSSIA 

Andreyev (Leonid) — Love of One's Neigh- 
bor 

Tchekofif (Anton) — ^The Boor 



SPAIN 

Benavente (Jacinto) — His Wldow'a Hu»> 

band 
Quintero (Serafin and Joaquin Alvaies-) 

— A Sunny Morning 
SWEDEN 

Strindberg (August) — The Creditor 
UNITED STATES 

Beach (Lewis) — Brothers 
Cowan (Sada) — In the Morgue 
Crocker (Bosworth) — The Baby Carriage 
Cronyn (George W.) — A Death in Fever 

Flat 
Davies (Mary Carolyn) — The Slave with 

Two Faces 
Day (Frederick L.) — The Slump 
Planner (Hildegard) — Mansions 
Gljispell (Susan) — Trifles 
Gerstenberg (Alice) — The Pot Boiler 
Helburn (Theresa) — Enter the Hero 
Hudson (Holland) — The Shepherd in the 

Distance 
Kemp (Harry) — Boccaccio's Untold Tale 
Langner (Lawrence) — Another Way Out 
MacMillan (Mary) — The Shadowed Star 
Millay (Edna St. Vincent) — Aria da Capo 
Moeller (Philip) — Helena's Husband 
O'NeiU (Eugene)— He 
Stevens (Thomas Wood) — The Nurtery 

Maid of Heaven 
Stevens (Wallace) — Three Travelers Watch 

a Sunrise 
Tompkins (Frank G.) — Sham 
Walker (Stuart)— The Medicine Show 
Wellman (Rita)— For All Time 
Wilde (Percival)— The Finger of God 
YIDDISH 

Asch (Sholom) — Night 

Pinski (David) — Forgotten Soola 



Large 8vo, 58 j pages. Net, $j.oo 
Special India Paper Edition, Limp Cloth, $6.00; Limp Leather, $7.50 



Stewart Kidd Dramatic Anthologies 

European Theories o/tfie Drama 

By BARRETT H. CLARK 

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